


If I Only Had A Heart

by Paint_Stained_Heart



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Alcohol, Canon-Typical Violence, Healing, M/M, Marijuana, Nat has PTSD, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Recovery, Slow Burn, Steve tries to take care of everyone but his damn self, Yoga, bucky has ptsd
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-28
Updated: 2017-06-28
Packaged: 2018-11-20 01:43:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 48,488
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11326056
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Paint_Stained_Heart/pseuds/Paint_Stained_Heart
Summary: T’Challa’s tried to be neutral. “Leave him, take him, I do not care. Just don’t let him injure another soul,” he’d said in one of his rare contributions to the discussion. Steve knew, though, that T’Challa’s hand was being forced; his advisors don’t want to hold the Winter Soldier in expensive, high-security, high-voltage facilities for much longer.The arguing has, eventually, come to consensus. Bucky’s coming out of cryo today and being shipped back to the United States, to the Avengers tower in New York. The doctors say it’s for further evaluation. For adjustment. For prodding and intel. For one of the most interesting case studies in the history of POW recoveries.But for Steve, it’s simply time to bring Bucky home.





	If I Only Had A Heart

**Author's Note:**

  * For [AraniaArt](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AraniaArt/gifts).



> Ah! I think the fact that hundreds of people collaborate from all over the world to organize, create, and edit these works for free is one of the high key most beautiful things the human race is capable of.
> 
> I am so indebted to both endofadream and mific for editing the heck out of this piece, and the mods for being my cheerleaders along the way. 
> 
> I love these two so gosh darn much.
> 
> And of course, many, many thanks to AraniaArt for supplying not only the initial inspo but also the ideas and <333 along the way.

_ When a man's an empty kettle he should be on his mettle, _

_ And yet I'm torn apart. _

_ Just because I'm presumin' that I could be kind-a-human, _

_ If I only had heart. _

_ I'd be tender - I'd be gentle and awful sentimental _

_ Regarding Love and Art. _

_ I'd be friends with the sparrows ... _

_ and the boys who shoots the arrows _

_ If I only had a heart. _

_ Picture me - a balcony. Above a voice sings low. _

_ Wherefore art thou, Romeo? I hear a beat.... _

_ How sweet. _

_ Just to register emotion, jealousy - devotion, _

_ And really feel the part. _

_ I could stay young and chipper _

_ and I'd lock it with a zipper, _

_ If I only had a heart. _

 

_ –The Wizard of Oz (1939) _

  
  


**Prologue**

 

Every twenty-something in America has an elevator pitch. Name, hometown, alma mater, that sort of thing. Steven Grant Rogers also has an elevator pitch. It’s something like, “I was born in 1918 in Brooklyn as a squat scrawny piece of nothing without two dimes to rub together and then joined the army as a special serum recipient, turned into the world’s only known super soldier at the time, went on ice for about 70 years, and now I’m a museum exhibit come to life bumbling around the 21st century who is very confused by the nuances of ‘Kanye 2020.’” 

Unsurprisingly, said elevator pitch doesn’t tend to make one particularly popular. People do like Captain America – they  _ love  _ him – but very few are interested in the man  _ behind _ the elevator pitch. They want their autographs and their pictures taken, and then they want to read about him in their comic books. He poses with bald eagles for magazines and he’s got an Amber Waves of Grain cereal brand now. He is somehow known to everyone and practically no one at the same time. 

Well, that’s not exactly true. Steve is known rather intimately by a small, motley crew of enhanced supers who have all decided to take up tenancy in Stark’s tower in Manhattan, because at one point putting all of the enhanced weirdos into the same building seemed like a  _ good _ idea. The same group, by the way, who nearly tore each other to  _ pieces _ a few months ago in D.C., but the wounds and friendships have begun to heal. Not perfectly – there will be scar tissue – and Rhodes will surely never walk right again. They’re healing nonetheless. They have to – the world needs them.

But today, the Avengers Tower is unusually empty. 

 

* * *

Steve’s fidgety all morning. He doesn’t even notice the manifestation of his own anxiety until Natasha, without the slightest hint of humor, points out, “Jesus Christ, Steve, you look like a caffeinated crack addict.” 

Steve tries to make himself relax; he really does. He goes on his usual twelve-mile run with Sam to start the day, though he doesn’t make any of his usual (terrible) jokes as he laps Sam again (and again). After a long, cold shower, he drinks a mugful of green tea out of a tacky Hulk thermos Tony picked up from a souvenir shop in Manhattan. Steve even puts on an album called ‘Rain,’ which he quickly decides is bougie and also stupid. He removes the needle from the vinyl, watching the record rotate soundlessly. Nothing works to distract him. He’s anxious, and mad at himself for being anxious, which of course only makes him more anxious. What does he have to be anxious about? This is Bucky. He  _ knows _ Bucky.

Everyone’s finding Steve disorienting to be around; it’s not often Captain America wrings his hands, unable to sit still, looking unsure and somehow small despite his serum-enhanced build. The others steer clear of him as he runs his fingers through his hair and takes deep, shaky breaths.

He is, of course, in Wakanda. Out of curiosity disguised as a ‘necessary precaution,’ most of the Avengers have joined him here. Tony was lurking in a lab checking out some cutting-edge Wakandan robotics, as is Dr. Banner, returned from his long self-quarantine and meditation retreat in the south of India. Natasha’s sleuthing around somewhere, making herself useful to King T’Challa, and Sam and Wanda have made time to be there as well. Clint was at home with his family, though, and Ms. Potts and Maria Hill were manning the homefront back in NYC.

Sam claps Steve on the shoulder knowingly after catching him pacing in one of the many hallways of the labyrinth that is Bucky’s holding facility. Whether Steve likes it or not, Sam has taken up the position as Therapist Friend with grace.

“So, your boy’s coming out today,” Sam says nonchalantly.

At “your boy” Steve’s throat closes up. He nods when his voice doesn’t work.

Bucky’s been on ice for two and a half months now, ever since he turned himself in and the footage had revealed that the attack in Vienna had nothing to do with him. He’d volunteered himself for cryo stoically, knowing his molten brain was still ripe for the hijacking and terrified of putting anyone (read: Steve) in danger. Steve had begged The Avengers to find a more humane way to keep Bucky restrained; he couldn’t bear to watch him go under and back into cryogenic sleep, watch the IV drip, drip, drip for hours on end, the ragged rise and fall of Bucky’s chest, the thrashing against his restraints when the nightmares broke through his endless sedation. He hated that Bucky was so close, his face inches beneath the frosted glass, and yet still, seemingly, a century away.

Steve couldn’t bear to watch, but he did anyway. He watched, impatient, as doctors and different colored syringes and machinery went in and out of that room, trying to figure out what the hell Hydra had done to Bucky’s body (and humanity) and how to undo it. How to salvage the pieces that were left of him. 

Blood samples: inconclusive. 

Brain scans: inconclusive. 

DNA tests: inconclusive. 

Hopes shattered every goddamn time. While the other Avengers roamed in and out, visiting Wakanda to check on Steve or have a diplomatic meeting with T’Challa or simply say hi while passing through, Steve stayed. Of course he stayed. Where else would he go? The last remnant of who he is, who he was, where he comes from, is here. So Steve is here. 

The shield’s gathering dust in a closet in New York.

The days, naturally, have become repetitive, which makes Steve antsy. He’s become  _ too _ accustomed to the routine of run, breakfast, read the news –  _ fuck Donald Trump –  _ check on Bucky, draw, check on Bucky, lunch, meet with doctors, check on Bucky, rinse and repeat.

But today iss different. The doctors seem to be getting tired of the status quo as well, because three days ago they told Steve that they wanted to try something. They wanted to see how Sgt. Barnes’ brain would respond to stimuli, particularly old memories and the presence of someone from his past, to see what he might be able to remember. They wanted to start treatment, therapy, recovery. They wanted more data They wanted to unleash whatever was frozen behind the glass for further study.

Tony’s staunchly against it. He’s more or less forgiven Steve – he  _ has _ – but he says there’s no need to release an unpredictable psychopathic assassin in his facilities, and  _ especially _ not in the Avengers Tower and  _ especially especially  _ not anywhere near Pepper. Not to mention releasing the unpredictable psychopathic assassin who  _ killed Tony’s parents _ . Bucky’s dangerous, he decides, and all the more thanks to the lengths Steve would undoubtedly go to protect him.

Natasha seems nervous. Not as nervous as Steve, maybe, but nervous nonetheless. Steve wonders if she fears that once those glass doors are open, their friendship will come second, and he can’t say in good faith that he’s one hundred percent sure that won’t happen. He knows she’s worked hard at the unlikely friendship they’ve built. Anyone who knows Nat knows that trust doesn’t come easy to her, and for good reason. She’s not one to share her feelings, though, so she simply slips around the Wakandan holding facility and doesn’t stay anywhere too long.

Sam's been nothing short of ecstatic. In the short time he’s fought alongside Cap and Bucky, he’s adopted them as bros. Sam's told Steve that it'll be a long time before he forgets the way Bucky launched himself in front of Sam to protect him from that spider-thing during the in-fighting. Sam's also made it clear he hasn't forgotten their  _ other _ interactions – like Bucky ripping off one of his wings and throwing him off a  _ building _ – but he said that could be forgiven, especially if Bucky coming out of cryo put a smile back on Steve’s face. Steve knows Sam isn’t naive; he knows Bucky’s release won’t simply mean beer, pizza, Super Smash and world-saving – that it'll mean pain, and healing. Sam's been working at the VA hospital long enough to know that, Jesus. Sam told Steve he even bought some drywall to patch up the holes he was anticipating. But he'd said that if he could have had five more minutes with Riley, he’d take it in a heartbeat, so it was his job to do the same for Cap. Steve honestly doesn't know what he's done to deserve Sam as a friend. 

 

The other Avengers have had their opinions, too, of course. They’ve sat around the roundtable for hours, going back and forth, arguing with each other and the doctors over how best to move forward with Steve’s comatose serial killer/best friend that T’Challa’s holding downstairs. It’s not exactly easy to get Thor on speaker phone, either.

Steve’s kept quiet during these meetings. They know where he stands.

T’Challa’s tried to be neutral. “Leave him, take him, I do not care. Just don’t let him injure another soul,” he’d said in one of his rare contributions to the discussion. Steve knew, though, that T’Challa’s hand was being forced; his advisors don’t want to hold the Winter Soldier in expensive, high-security, high-voltage facilities for much longer.

The arguing has, eventually, come to consensus. Bucky’s coming out of cryo today and being shipped back to the United States, to the Avengers tower in New York. The doctor’s say it’s for further evaluation. For adjustment. For prodding and intel. For one of the most interesting case studies in the history of POW recoveries.

But for Steve, it’s simply time to bring Bucky home.

 

It comes as no surprise to Steve when Nat finds him later that morning, alone, sitting on one of the many silver staircases in the Wakandan holding facility, knees bouncing, his clean-shaven face in his hands. She does have a way of showing up when she’s needed.

Steve’s pretty sure it hasn’t escaped Nat’s notice that he shaved for Bucky _. _ On a good day, he can imagine her telling him how very 1940s it is of him. Today, she saves the sass.

“Hey,” she says in that raspy voice of hers, approaching Steve from behind where she’ll see his tense back muscles beneath his fitted gray T-shirt. He doesn’t respond, but his tight shoulders relax slightly at the sound of her voice. She sits herself down beside him and he glances at her. She’s all in black, tight-fitting leather and little black heeled boots, the only hint of color being a mint green scarf and, of course, her gash of red hair.

“I’m not gonna know what to say to him,” Steve says, staring ahead, unseeing.  

“Maybe you won’t need to say anything,” she replies.

“Do you think he remembers me? Really remembers? I feel like I have no idea who is gonna come out of the cryo container today.” He shakes his head, feeling the deep-seated exhaustion he’s carried with him since the day he woke up from his own stint in the ice.

Natasha puts her arm around him and lays her head on his shoulder – a huge sign of trust from her. He returns the favor, snaking his arm around her and holding her there comfortably.

“I guess we’re about to find out,” she practically whispers.

 

* * *

**Part 1**

**_Child’s Pose_ **

 

Waking up from cryo is never a pleasant experience. First of all, your neck hurts like absolute hell. Everything is stiff, creaking, an old house of a person coming back to life.

It’s no different for James Buchanan Barnes. His eyes roll in his head for a second – he can’t hardly see beyond the curtain of greasy dark hair flopped in his eyes. The nausea and vertigo hit him like a train, and the world goes black again before color and light start to filter back into his vision. He swallows back bile but even his esophagus is cold and unwilling. Everything is bright – uncomfortably so. He slams his eyes shut painfully against the white, and lights dance behind his lids.

The white and silver are everywhere and his eyes are shut and he’s awake? It’s painful, limbs tingling, heart rate coming back from the death-like slump it was chugging along at, everything awake and painful and pinned up, taped back, plugged in. There are at least four IVs. He does a full-body scan from where he sits, checking his body as he’s done many times before. Assessment: nothing broken. Pain from blood rushing to all parts of his body. Heat coming back. People have been prodding him. Skin graft on his left thigh. New incisions on his wrist. Metal arm is gone.  _ Gone? _ IV drip: fluid unknown. Suggests presence of handlers. Experimentation. Panic starts to set in before the memories of how he got here and who he is can slam back into him, reminding him to try to find his place in his own skin again.  _ I’m Bucky, I’m Bucky, Bucky Barnes, born March 10, 1917...Winter Soldier, Asset...No, no Bucky Barnes, born March 10, 1917.... _

“James. Hi, James. Can you hear me?” says a female voice. A doctor. She sounds like she’s underwater – Bucky quickly realizes that’s what a voice sounds like from behind a wall of glass. Bulletproof, he surmises grimly. He  _ is _ the most dangerous assassin in the world, after all. His stomach churns thinking about it, and he’s suddenly very grateful for the bulletproof plexiglass; if anyone belongs in a zoo, it’s him.

He doesn’t respond for a good long moment. The doctors and researchers in the room hold their breath under the fluorescent lights while he remembers how to speak, moves his tongue painfully from where it’s stuck dryly to the roof of his mouth.

“It’s...Bucky,” he grunts, head still dangling against his chest. He wonders if Steve’s still here, if he’s watching. Bucky’s eyes open, then shut. He coughs, rough and deep. The fingers on his remaining flesh arm flex up and down as he tries to regain motion, slowly and steadily. He blinks more rapidly, coughs again, and spits. The inside of his mouth tastes goddamn awful, and he can’t imagine how rancid his breath must be.

“Okay,  _ Bucky _ . My name is Dr. Johnson.” Finally, Bucky gets eyes on the woman speaking to him and manages to get her into focus. She’s a young doctor, with sleek black hair tied back in a long ponytail Her arms are completely covered in tattoo sleeves. She speaks in a voice that is gentle without being pejorative. “I’ve been treating you for a while now. Do you know where you are?” she says. She appears competent: good at what she does. Her shoes click on the floor as she moves, and Bucky keeps his eyes trained on her.

“I’m...I don’t...” The doctor waits as Bucky blinks through his confusion. His voice is like sandpaper. “I’m in...a holding cell. In Wakanda. I’m here because...” and Bucky looks up, straightens up in his restraints. He looks up from the cryo chamber, up through the glass to where Steve Rogers looks on, eyes trained on him.Bucky sets his jaw.

“I’m here because of Captain America.”

 

* * *

Bucky comes out of his restraints two hours later, once he’s deemed safe enough to do so by three different pre-screened psychologists (they aren’t going to make that mistake again) and by Dr. Johnson herself. Still, there are several armed guards in the room – it’s unnerving to say the least. It also doesn’t help that Bucky – the Winter Soldier – has to be unlocked from four separate layers of uranium shackles. Doesn’t exactly lighten the mood.

Steve feels his pager go off before it actually beeps at his waistband. Bucky’s doctors had given it to him to notify him when it was time to come down. This is his cue: Steve walks like a zombie down three flights of stairs to Bucky’s holding room – cell? – toward Bucky, Bucky Barnes, his best friend since before he can remember. As he descends the stairs toward Bucky whose eyes are finally, finally open again, Steve can’t help feeling like he’s sixteen again, small and bloody-knuckled and wanting things he couldn’t have.

The door to Bucky’s cell is there way before he’s ready, and then his hand’s on the scanner, which read his = fingerprint, and the door opens even though he doesn’t remember pushing it, and then he’s there, in the room, facing a shirtless, newly-awakened, one-armed, scattered, shaken Bucky Barnes. The same Bucky he’d watched snore in a cot in the middle of the Austrian winter. The same Bucky who could score a double date with any girl in Brooklyn back in the day, even with a dweeb like Steve Rogers as his wingman. The same Bucky who was currently begging the doctors to put him back to sleep, to freeze him again and make the thoughts  _ stop _ and keep everyone safe. The same Bucky whose chest and shoulders are now covered in scars, mutilated and raw with raised, red skin that looks eerily like the scars that whips and electric rods leave behind.

Bucky stopped pleading with the doctors when Steve enters the room.

“Steve.” The word falls out of Bucky’s mouth like a marble, round and smooth and heavy. Steve doesn’t know what to do as he looks at the ground and kicks at something not-there on the floor. Finally, he looks up. 

“Buck?”

Bucky darts across the room, and security staff loom from every angle, guns and tranquilizers at the ready, all pointing squarely at the Winter Soldier’s heart as this cannonball of a person hurtles violently away from Steve and hides under a table in the corner of the room.

It reminds Steve of a dog, cowering in fear, but he can’t stomach the thought, can’t bear to imagine what it takes to make a grown man shiver half-naked under a table, eyes panic-stricken like a cornered, wounded animal.

“I’m too dangerous,” Bucky says earnestly to the doctor, eyes on Steve as he continues to scramble away from him. “Why am I out here? Who knows who I’ll hurt next? Put me back in that glass coffin where I can’t hurt nobody.” He shakes his head as he says it. Steve notices how skinny he looks, the stubble on his chin, the lank hang of his hair. Steve squats down on the tile floor to be eye level with Bucky, but he keeps his distance. He waits. If there’s one thing Steve Rogers has on just about everyone else, it was patience.

“You won’t hurt anyone, Buck,” Steve says confidently in a low voice.

Dr. Johnson, far more professionally (and probably accurately), says, “We’re doing an experiment.” Bucky flinches on the last word, which in turn makes Steve to flinch at Bucky’s reaction.

Bucky continues to fight it, staying far away from Steve and arguing politely but adamantly with the doctors. He sounds like _Bucky._ They at least manage to coax him out from under the table, but it was hard to stomach, Steve watching his best friend looking so defeated  with his hunched shoulders and the dark circles around eyes that are too glazed, too empty. Eyes that have seen far, far too much in their too-many years on Earth. Eyes that have cheated death and circled back from the depths of hell. 

And it doesn’t escape Steve’s notice how Bucky keeps looking longingly down at where his metal arm used to be.

“James, we’ve created a device to handle just the scenario you’re worried about. You  _ will not  _ hurt anybody. Ever again. We wouldn’t be bringing you out of cryogenic sleep if we weren’t confident in both our technology and your ability to adjust. You’ll be wearing this.” Dr. Johnson lifts a metal cuff off the lab table. It’s thick, a mostly black bracelet with two silver buttons on it. It looks like an expensive probation anklet, but far more sleek and lightweight. “This is a sedative cuff. You’re going to wear it 24/7, Sergeant. It’s designed with small needles on the inside, facing your wrist. It’s programmed to inject you with strong, fast-acting tranquilizers whenever it detects the Russian language – the language of your trigger words, naturally. If another handler or psychopath tries to use your triggering commands and unleash the Soldier, you’ll shut down. It’s not the most convenient or foolproof technology Stark’s ever created, but we think it will do the job.”

“Who’s ‘we’?” Bucky asks skeptically. He eyes Steve, who blushes and shoves his hands deeper in his pockets. No one answers him.

“See, Buck,” Steve starts, frowning at the way Bucky flinches at hearing his own name. “If anyone starts to say your trigger words, you’ll be out like a light. You won’t be a danger to anyone.”

“And,” continues Dr. Johnson, “it empowers you as well. If at any point, Sergeant, you become overwhelmed or don’t trust yourself, all you have to do is say something in Russian and the cuff will knock you out. Alternatively, if an Avenger finds you to be a threat, they can do the same thing.”

“And what happens if someone who wants me dead says somethin’ in Russian and I become their plaything again?” Bucky spits, cold and knowing. It sends ice through Steve’s stomach. The room goes quiet. Bucky looks warily at the cuff, as if he doesn’t like it but doesn’t have any fight left in himt Cryogenic sleep’s taken a lot out of him.

“Sergeant, that is, ah, an...unfortunate risk we feel we have to take. However, no one outside of this room besides the Avengers will know about the cuff. And for the time being, your perimeter will be the Stark Tower in Manhattan.”

“I don’t like it,” Bucky mumbles, starting to really show his exhaustion. He leans his one arm on the counter, bracing himself. “I don’t trust this cuff bullshit to keep you all outta harm’s way. One Russian word at the wrong time and they’ve hauled my ass back to the chair. Hell, what if I hear a little Russian on the TV? Also, who’s gonna know about the cuff and who isn’t? It’s... _ I’m _ a deadly weapon in the wrong hands. I don’t trust it.” 

“You remember the Cyclone? From Before?” Steve asks simply, referring to their days in Brooklyn last century. Bucky wracks his brain, trying to remember, but finally looks up apologetically, a vacant  _ no _ in his eyes.

“Never mind,” Steve covers quickly. “Point is, I’ve trusted you since we were twelve, and I ain’t gonna stop now.”

* * *

 

There’s no grace period for Bucky. Within hours of being woken up from two and a half months of cryogenic sleep, Bucky is fitted into the sedative cuff, dressed in clothes that don’t belong to him, fed a hearty traditional Wakandan stew that he scarfs down hungrily in a way that makes Steve’s heart clench, and is boarded onto a helicarrier. 

Bucky insists on being handcuffed to his seat throughout the entire flight and sits far away from Steve. The handcuffs clank against the new black-and-silver cuff whenever there’s turbulence. Bucky’s face is impossible to read.

The flight reminds Steve of the day, back in the war, when he leaned over Bucky’s still-breathing body in Zola’s lab, felt the short, hot breath stuttering out of him and knew he was in there; he was  _ alive.  _

Bringing Bucky home seems to have become Steve’s life’s work.

A few of the other Avengers catch a ride with them, but there are no introductions – no real need for them, after the fighting three months ago. Tony glares at Bucky, which causes Steve to glare at Tony. Bucky, of course, notices none of this as he half-heartedly scowls at his own hands and practically droops in his seat. 

It’s a long ride over the Atlantic.

 

* * *

They arrive at Stark Tower at the ass crack of dawn. Everyone in the helicarrier fell asleep, except for Bucky, who’d probably sat rigid and shivering throughout the entire flight, fighting the airsickness and anxiety from his still-coming-back-to-life system. Steve had tried his best to stay awake, but even super soldiers need their sleep. Now he’s got the crick in his neck to prove it  and is kicking himself for passing out on Bucky.

Steve remembers, suddenly, a different time, when he’d passed out on Bucky Barnes. He was on the only bed in their one-room apartment in Brooklyn, just after Steve’s mother had died and he’d stopped being able to afford the rent on his own. He was a puddle of a human, tucked beneath all three blankets they owned with an unfinished sketch in his lap. He’d tried so hard to stay awake for Bucky, but his heavy lids and resounding cough had exhausted his feeble body. It was probably pneumonia,  _ again _ , but they couldn’t afford a doctor,  _ again _ . It used to make Bucky’s fists clench to know he couldn’t get Steve the medical attention he needed. He never mentioned it, but Steve could tell how pissed he was by the set of his jaw and the number of hours he picked up at the shipyard. Steve had been dozing by the time Bucky’d jimmied the lock, trying and failing to keep quiet as he slipped off his muddy work boots, pulled the grease-and-sweat stained tank top over his head, reeking of fish, and took an ice cold shower. Steve remembers having been half-awake and starting to grumble something as Buck crawled into bed, cold toes on cold toes. He’d woken in the morning to Bucky’s raised eyebrows and muttered, “Shit, I did it again, didn’t I?” as Bucky dressed for the morning shift.

After riding through the night in the helicarrier – certainly designed for efficiency rather than comfort – everyone stumbles stiff and groggy off the vehicle, headed straight for their beds as the first red freckle of sun starts to peek up over the Atlantic. As he cracks his back, Sam gives Steve a  _ look  _ – one Steve is surely supposed to interpret but misses entirely. Then he too disappears into his quarters.

Steve puts a hand behind his head, scratching awkwardly at the nape of his neck, standing on the roof of Stark Tower with the arms of the chopper still swinging loudly to a standstill. Bucky sways where he stands a safe distance away, as if he won’t move unless ordered. They’ve got more work cut out for them than he’d realized.

“Hey, uh, we don’t have an apartment yet for you. Stark’s being – well, it’s not important. Point is, you’re, er, welcome to stay with me. I’ve got a spare room you can crash in, or whatever. Would that be alright?”

Bucky nods with sunken eyes. Steve guesses Bucky knows he hasn’t much of a choice.

Unsurprisingly, the Avengers’ trust and faith in the United States has wavered considerably after the exposure of S.H.I.E.L.D. and the candidacy of one of the most unpredictable presidents in U.S. history. Nervous about going forward while some Avengers are still being held accountable to the Sokovia Accords, it had seemed wise to consolidate and move all of them into the Tower. Meetings are frequent and run late into the nights. Clint’s up here three days a week and has his own space; Bruce has returned quietly to help Stark in the lab, and Stark himself shares the penthouse with Pepper Potts; Scott Lang’s on board, and Natasha has a room, though no one’s quite sure that she actually  _ slept  _ there. Even the spider-kid, Stark’s newest investment that mostly puzzles the other Avengers, has a space of his own, full of retro computers and circuit boards.

 

* * *

 

Bucky almost –  _ almost  _ – smiles when Steve lets him into his apartment. He’d had practically an entire floor of the Tower to himself; the forty-fourth, to be exact. Despite the modern, tech-savvy sleek and silver feel of Stark Tower, Steve’s place couldn’t have been more different. It’s not an exact replica of their old nook in Brooklyn, but it’s pretty darn close. It’s got pink translucent curtains at the windows, a yellowing 1940s Frigidaire that somehow still works, vintage wallpaper, horrendous patterned couches and refurbished wooden wardrobes and a dining room table that could have come straight out of Sarah Rogers’ kitchen. Whoever decorated the place (probably Stark’s gal, Bucky surmised) hasn’t left out a detail: from the lamps to the clocks to the silverware, the apartment screams 1941.

There are pictures, too. Some black-and-white – Sarah Rogers with a toddler on her lap circa 1921, Bucky’s own mug alongside the grimy-looking but smiling Howling Commandos in some vaguely Italian city, the New York skyline – and some in color. Peggy and Steve, but she’s ancient (95, Bucky finds out later) while Steve doesn’t look a day over 24, and they’re in a hospital room or hospice of some sort. Bucky is surprised that her name comes to his head so easily. Surprised that he remembers. Another photo on the living room shelf is Natasha, Steve and Sam – the Avengers Bucky is most familiar with – but it’s low quality and looks like they took the picture themselves – yes, a “selfie.” He’d read about them in Bucharest. Kind of silly, if you asked him, but of course no one did. 

There’s a record player, old, with a stack of vinyls beside it, gathering dust, and a high-tech, expensive-looking stereo sound system sits beside it. Assessment: Steve Rogers cares about music. Bucky files it away in the frighteningly small but growing body of facts he has about Steve. He knows Steve knows  _ him. _ Or at least, knows who he used to be. He knows Steve loves mint chocolate chip ice cream, and that he can draw better than anything you’ll find in the Met, and that lifting buckets of dead fish all day is killer on the back. These are things that he  _ knows _ . But Bucky couldn’t tell you  _ how _ he knows them.

Sometimes he remembers. Mostly, he doesn’t. His memory is a patchwork quilt that the moths have gotten to but that someone is trying, desperately, to salvage.

Bucky remembers a tidbit he’d read in a magazine while on the run; an article about the restoration of the Mona Lisa after the French finally uncovered her post-war. Maybe that’s what he’s like. A painting hidden away for the ugly parts of history, a painting that could have been bombed to pieces but wasn’t. A painting that shouldn’t have outlived millions of young men, but did. A painting that someone wants, so badly, to refurbish, not understanding that some damage can’t be undone.

“It looks...familiar,” Bucky mutters as he looks around. It’s the first thing he’s said since the observation room in Wakanda. Steve almost jumps at the sound of his voice. “This place, I mean.”

“It’s based on Brooklyn, from Before. You like it? You can make yourself at home. If you want.” Bucky can tell that his words have stirred something – excitement, maybe – in Steve, and he can’t decide if he likes it or not. Steve continues, “We used to live in a place like this. I, uh, I really like it, actually. Makes things feel more normal, somehow. I dunno. Less jarring when I wake up and forget that it’s 2017.”

“2017...” Bucky agrees, shaking his head in disbelief. A buzz of mutual understanding lightens the tension between them.

“C’mon, I’ll show you your room,” Steve says.

 

Bucky closes the door behind him and is finally alone in his room. He touches everything. The bed, and the comforter (softer than anything he remembers, but that isn’t saying much). He touches the wooden bookshelf. There are a few novels. He wonders idly what year  _ 1984  _ was actually written in. He touches the closet. Opens it. There are clothes in it. This surprises him – and...they’re all in his size.

They’re his.

That’s when he starts crying. Tears silently trickle down his cheeks looking at these stupid fucking clothes that someone fucking bought him. He has...possessions. It’s maybe the first step to being human again: to own rather than be owned. To have just one thing, one belonging. The Asset was never allowed possessions. 

Nothing on the hangers looks like armor. These are not outfits designed for killing, or even fighting. Not one article of clothing in this closet is bulletproof. These are textiles designed for a person who just... lives. Who lounges. Who crosses the street for fruit from the market. Who hails taxis. These are clothes for someone who goes out to dinner with his friends. Who goes to the gym and drinks coffee on his way to work.

God dammit, why is he crying over boxer briefs?

But he is, and he stays there a good long time, crying and heaving. He slumps down on his knees and wakes up hours later, in a fetal position on the floor of the closet. He doesn’t quite have it in him to get up, and Steve doesn’t bother him. He’s left wondering if he is deserving of this gracious stepping stone toward personhood.

 

* * *

Steve lets Bucky stay put in his room that first day – they’ve already asked so much of him, and Bucky’s eyes are full of ghosts, and the guy needs a goddamn break. Steve sleeps an hour or two, but he’s far too awake to spend the day in his bed like his super counterparts.  _ James fucking Buchanan Barnes _ is in his  _ apartment.  _ It makes his body tingle. He makes coffee and finds a note Nat left (sneaky minx) under an Iron Man magnet on his fridge – God, why is everyone in this tower so obsessed with Avengers paraphernalia? 

 

_ Rogers, _

 

_ I know this is happening faster _

_ than any of us expected. But I think  _

_ it’s a good thing. Let me know if you _

_ need anything. He’s stronger than you think.  _

_ And so are you. _

 

_ Nat _

 

Steve reads the note once, twice, folds it up and pushes it deep into his pocket. He sits at the kitchen table and reads the news on his iPhone – Trump’s fired the director of the FBI, great – and shakes his head. He finds a sketchbook with unused pages, a rarity these days with so much on his mind and so little to  _ do, _ and lets his artist’s hands take over. It’s the Brooklyn shipyard that takes shape on the page, in pencil, with lots of shading. It takes a few hours to complete. He leaves the notebook open on the coffee table.

Why? He hates that he  _ knows _ why. Of course he knows. Because a selfish part of him wants the sketch to catch Bucky’s eye, for a flashback to bring Bucky back to him. He just wants Bucky to  _ remember. _

 

Bucky doesn’t emerge from the room at lunchtime. He doesn’t respond when Steve taps on the door and mumbles something about dinner. He doesn’t come out when Steve announces outside his closed door that he’s going to bed, and that if he needs anything at all, he can come get Steve whenever. He doesn’t come out when Steve sets extra blankets and a warm pair of socks outside the door. He doesn’t come out in the morning, either. As per usual, when he starts to get befuddled by one of life’s great mysteries, Steve pulls out his cell phone and texts the person with the most answers: Sam.

 

From: Captain Stubborn

May 3, 2017

9:23 am

Sam... I need your help...

 

From: Sam Wilson

May 3, 2017

9:26 am

Dude I am asleep.

 

9:26 am

Also, no one in the 21st century uses those ominous dot-dot-dots

 

From: Captain Stubborn

May 3, 2017

9:27 am 

Falcons are diurnal, Sam. 

 

9:27 am 

It’s serious.

 

9:28 am

Bucky hasn’t come out of his room. I’m worried about him. It’s been 24h

 

From: Sam Wilson

May 3, 2017

9:30 am

Please. You’re always worried about him

Give him space, man. The guy’s been tortured on and off for the better part of a century, and we just brought him back. You of all people know he’s gonna need some time.

 

9:20 am

And btw? I am done w your ornithologist ass, Steve. This Falcon doesn’t rise until coffee’s made.

 

From: Captain Stubborn 

May 3, 2017

9:31 am

I guess you’re right.

 

From: Sam Wilson

May 3, 2017

9:32 am

Go for a run?

 

From: Captain Stubborn

May 3, 2017

9:33 am

I don’t think I can leave him, Sam. Not now.

 

From: Sam Wilson

May 3, 2017

9:35 am

Don’t forget self-care, Rogers. Burnout is real. You’ve been at Bucky’s side day in and day out for almost three months. You deserve a break too.

 

From: Captain Stubborn

May 3, 2017

9:37 am

Ha. Ha. I’ll be fine, Sam.

 

Steve knocks on Bucky’s door again at 4 o’clock in the afternoon. Bucky’s been in there since they arrived  _ yesterday morning _ . It’s too much for him. At this point, he’s not even convinced that Bucky’s in there at all.

“Bucky?” Steve says softly, a gentle tap on the door. The untouched blanket and socks on the floor make his heart sink, just a little. He puts a big hand on the door knob; it’s locked. 

“Bucky, you don’t have to come out of there or anything but...I’ve got food. I know your caloric needs have got to be as ridiculous as mine. And a bathroom. You wanna shower or–”

The lock clicks. The door opens. For some reason, Steve’d thought it would take more to coax Bucky out of his room, but then again, food has always been a magic word with him. His face appears in the crack of the door, swollen and bloodshot, his hair clumped like he’s been sleeping on it.

“You got a toothbrush?”

 

Bucky is disheveled as hell. Steve finds him a toothbrush, floss, and two types of toothpaste embarrassingly fast. Bucky doted on Steve his whole pre-serum life; it’s about damn time he returned the favor. He preps a bath for him. Makes some admittedly mediocre pancakes. Bucky doesn’t say much, just sort of exists, floats. Goes where Steve suggests. Follows orders, like it’s all he’s good for anymore.

Steve talks to fill the silence.

“There’s a hundred kinds of toothpaste now, Buck. Blows my mind. I’m serious.”

Their forks scrape their plates when the pancakes are finished. The quiet is oppressive.

Bucky locks himself in the bathroom after their mid-afternoon meal, and Steve strains to hear the sound of the water sloshing, to hear any signs of life from behind the door. There are none. He wonders momentarily if he should have hidden the razor blades, but shakes the thought and tries to give Bucky more credit. More trust. More autonomy. Steve waits and waits for Bucky to come out, but he doesn’t, and Steve goes to bed, alone, and wakes up in the morning to find the bathroom door open, towels neatly folded and bath drained, and Bucky’s door, locked, again. At least the blankets and socks have disappeared.

So it goes.

 

* * *

 

Bucky lays on the floor. That’s really  _ all  _ he does. Sometimes he dozes. Occasionally he gets up and counts his possessions again (seven T-shirts, two pairs of jeans, two pairs of sweatpants, three ball caps, five pairs of boxers, one bread knife swiped unnoticed from Steve’s kitchen, four books, the journal he kept in Bucharest that someone must have gone back for, five pairs of socks plus the fuzzy pair scooped from outside his room, and one set of intentionally placed dog tags on the nightstand that read “Barnes, James B. 1234567890. AB POS. PROTESTANT.” Mostly he tries to empty his brain, sort out what’s real and what isn’t. He considers whispering in Russian, just to put an end to the misery for a few hours by initiating the tranquilizing capabilities of the sedative cuff, a grim weight at the end of his only arm, but he’s already experiencing withdrawals from the cryo and remembers the hours of sweating, migraines, and vomiting in Bucharest thanks to whatever cocktail of drugs Hydra was pumping through his body, so he doesn’t tranquilize himself. Just fantasizes about it from the floor and stares at the ceiling.

Occasionally, he remembers things. He remembers jolts of electrocution and dissociated screams tearing through him. He remembers a schoolyard, a little girl who looks like him – his sister? Maybe? He remembers the faces of the people who died under his hand, and it scares him that that’s all he can remember: the faces. No names. Nothing about their families or their hobbies or their jobs or their homes. Just the haunting faces in a constant reel behind his eyelids. He remembers tidbits about Steve, too. His mother. That he wore newspapers in his shoes. That he was small, and now he’s...massive. The details in between are fuzzy. He remembers sleeping in a stinking tent beside reeking military boots in rainstorm, beside Steve, somehow warm despite the unforgiving winds and ice-rain. He can still feel the dampness of their bedrolls no matter how hard they tried to air them out. Sometimes he retches into the trashcan as the memories wash over him. His room has started to smell. But he deserves it, he tells himself. He killed all those people.

This is what it’s always been like, once Hydra started rewiring him from the inside out. First, memory wipe. Then cryo. Then mission. Then memory wipe. The longer he was out, the stronger the memories became. The louder the voice in the back of his head crying out to him. The bigger the doubt about what he was doing, who he was killing, the propaganda Hydra was spoon-feeding him. Things start fitting together, neural pathways that Hydra tried to sever coming back to life, like the electricity in the lighthouse has just come back on and he can see his way back to himself. He feels like a haywire circuit board. Memories become more and more accessible, more easily triggered, even  _ more  _ easily when the memories are from Before, when his brain was less cloudy and mad scientists weren’t dousing him in the periodic table on a weekly basis. Before comes easier than After – after is a fog. It is a montage of white-lightning pain and of motorcycle chases and more advanced and dangerous guns being placed in his obedient hands – one flesh, one bionic. The memories are stronger than last time. Bucharest was foreign, a new life. He wasn’t the Soldier and he wasn’t Barnes, he was anonymous, a ghost with a beating heart. Here, with the Avengers and Steve’s hopeful eyes, they expect him to be a person again. They expect him to be  _ Bucky  _ again. And the only man on Earth who remembers who he used to be is sitting just beyond a locked door.

Ah, Steve Rogers. Steve wouldn’t have obeyed, Bucky muses in despair from his pathetic slump on the apartment floor. If it had been Steve who fell from the train, he would have broken through the brainwashing. He would have refused. He would have put down his big fat stubborn foot and told Hydra,  _ no.  _ Even if they killed him for it. Steve’s conviction was that much stronger; he never hesitated between right and wrong. If Steve’s black and white, Bucky’s the endless miles of gray in between. It’s his fault –  he’s still dangerous, even without the arm. He’s a monster. Not just for what they did to him, but because he  _ let _ them. Where was his fight when it counted? Where was his will? Why didn’t he try to escape 100 times, like a good POW? 

Why didn’t he try even once?

The door stays locked.

 

* * *

 

There are horrible, cold screams piercing through the night like a knife at two in the morning. Steve jolts upright, a hefty dose of adrenaline already liquified in his bloodstream, and with Bucky’s name on his lips he’s pounding on the locked door in only his sweatpants, frantic.

“Bucky? BUCK! Are you alright? Can I come in?” The howls continue. Naturally, Steve breaks down the door. 

So much for the facade of privacy and autonomy. 

Bucky’s on the floor –  _ has he been sleeping on the floor this whole time?  _ – and he’s flat on his back, unseeing eyes wide with fear and lips muttering something incomprehensible. Sleep paralysis, Steve diagnoses in his head. He remembers those nights.

Bucky screams again, haunted gasps tearing out of his throat.

“Oh, Buck,” Steve says, dropping to the carpeted floor with him, unsure how to break him out of it without scaring the shit out of him. Breaking him out of a cell is one thing. Breaking him out of the shackles of his own mind is another endeavor entirely. Steve gently puts a hand on Bucky’s shoulder, and Bucky is immediately awake as if he’s been shocked, eyes snapping open.

Bucky starts sobbing. A silent sobbing. The kind you learn how to do when they fry your chest with an electric rod if they see you cry. Steve’s on his knees, a good two feet away from where Bucky lies sweating.  _ Personal space is important _ , Dr. Johnson had warned. 

“Bucky. It’s me. Steve. I know you remember me. You’re here with me, now. It’s 2017. You’re in my apartment. We’re in Manhattan. We’re friends, we uh, go  _ way  _ back, pal. You’re safe. Your birthday is–”

“March 10, 1917,” Bucky finishes, choking as he starts to breathe heavy, stuttering breaths, coming out of it. He looks directly at Steve, and his pupils come back into focus. The rocking stops. Steve inches closer.

“Yeah, it is, Buck.”

“You’re Steve.” It’s a sigh of relief.

“I am.” Bucky’s hyperventilation begins to slow. He’s taking deeper breaths. The tears stop flowing into his stubble and long hair (Steve makes a mental note to pick up some of those hair tie thingies or something). 

“Nightmare?” Steve asks. He knows what that’s like.

Bucky manages what Steve interprets as an affirmative grunt. Steve’s now sitting cross-legged beside Bucky, who hasn’t moved but also hasn’t indicated that he wants Steve to back off. He shivers. Steve is careful not to touch, not to startle. He too knows the feeling of waking up in the twenty-first century alone. 

“You can sleep in the bed, if you want,” Steve tries.

“Too soft.”

Steve almost laughs. He knows the feeling.

“You don’t have to be alone in here all day, Bucky. You know that, right?” 

“I’m not the Bucky you remember,” Bucky hisses, ice in his voice. “I don’t...I’m not worth the hassle. Your  _ friends  _ know I’m not.”

Steve breathes out, stung. How do you convince someone that they’re worth saving? How do you redraw a line that’s already been crossed? Steve begins to protest, but Bucky silences him with a sober, tear-stained look.

“I remember, you know. Most things,” Bucky says, sitting up. Despite all that’s happened, tonight and in their lives, it makes something jolt inside Steve to hear the Brooklyn accent in Bucky’s mouth. That’s when he  _ knows  _ Bucky’s in there.

“I knew you would.”

“You have too much faith in me, Rogers. Always have. You and I... we met as kids. In Brooklyn. Right? You were gettin’ your ass handed to you, if I remember correctly. God, Brooklyn. I can smell it. I don’t know why that’s the strongest part, but I can smell it clear as day, Steve.” For once, Bucky looks alight and curious. It’s a weird feeling, watching a friend relive a shared memory as if seeing it for the first time.

“That’s because you never washed your shirts, Buck,” Steve chuckles under his breath. Things are allowed to be light-hearted sometimes, he decides. It’s the first time in nearly a hundred years that they’re together and safe and no one’s trying to kill them. 

“Nah, it was the streets. Somethin ‘bout ‘em. Hot dogs in the summer. The East River. Swimming. Saving your skinny ass once, when you were drowning. Boy, you were 95 lb wet back then.”

“You really do remember?” There it is again. The tickle of hope in Steve’s voice.

“Some. Not all. A lot’s been lost. Or it’s...murky. Hard to place on a timeline, y’know? They fucked me up real good, Steve. The kind you don’t come back from.” Bucky shakes his head. 

“But you did come back.”

“You heard the screams,” Bucky says flatly as Steve winces. “I dunno if I’d call that coming back,” Bucky finishes.

The room is overly stuffy with two emotional super soldiers in it, feeling uncomfortably large on a moonlit night when all they feel inside is small, vulnerable, unsure. Even when they sit on the floor, inches apart and half-arguing, half-pleading, semi-remembering, they are giants in the low-ceilinged bedroom.

“You got a smoke?” Bucky says, a small, crooked smile on his face that doesn’t reach his eyes.

“If I had a nickel for every time you asked...”

“That a ‘no’?”

“We can pick some up at the store tomorrow, if you want,” Steve offers, amused that twenty-first century Bucky still craves a Marlboro Red. It’s something to hold onto.

“Thought I wasn’t allowed to leave the Tower.”

“Oh, right,” Steve says, awkward now. Doctor’s orders. “Rapunzel, Rapunzel...” Steve mutters under his breath, eyeing the black-and-silver sedative cuff that sits conspicuously on Bucky’s wrist. He’s sure, suddenly, that the thing has some kind of tracking device. Shit. Bucky really  _ can’t  _ go anywhere. 

“Well, until we can score you some Cowboy Killers, I, uh, well I’ve learned some other ways to calm the ol’ mind when it’s going a mile a minute. You ever heard of yoga?”

“Yoga?”

“Yeah. Yoga. It’s this sort of exercise, or spiritual practice. It comes from India but as I understand it, it’s kind of a young people thing now. Millennials, they call ‘em.  Anyway, it’s good for getting your mind off things, getting your breathing back steady...you do a bunch of poses, in a particular order. It...helps,” Steve struggles, trying sincerely to explain. 

“Sure as hell can’t hurt,” Bucky shrugs the one shoulder. “‘s not the first time I followed Captain America into the jaws of death.” Bucky smirks a  _ Bucky  _ smirk. Steve grins back, not sure  _ yoga  _ is the equivalent of  _ jaws of death _ , but he’ll take it.

“Alright, pal, well...and just trust me here...we’ll start you out easy. It feels silly, but I swear by it. This here’s called child’s pose.” Steve sits back on his folded knees, arms spreading out ahead of him as forehead touches the floor and his back extends.

Bucky imitates, unimpressed. Steve imagines that the stretch must feel good on his spine – he’s spent so much time curled in on himself. He hadn’t realized how tense he’d been holding his entire body until the breathing starts. Bucky starts to look a little more relaxed. In. Out. This...isn’t so bad.

They hold the pose a long time. A long, long time. Bucky sinks into it beside him, opening his ribcage and his hips, inflating and deflating with their synchronized breathing. It’s comforting, in a way, to have Bucky here, to hear his breathing, without having to talk. 

With his exhausted, abused body finally relaxed, it doesn’t take long for Bucky to get drowsy. He falls asleep right there, on the floor, eventually rolling onto his side. When Steve finally peeks out again from his own pose, a small smile pulls at his lips to see Bucky, mouth askew, face relaxed, snoozing on his side. He drapes a blanket over Bucky’s body, which twitches every now and again like a dog dreaming. Whatever dreams fill Bucky’s head, the screaming has stopped, and Steve’s work here is done. 

Now he’s stuck; it’s nearly three in the morning. Would it frighten Bucky to wake up all by himself? Would it be worse if Steve were there?

Unsurprisingly, and perhaps selfishly, Steve decides that it would be best for him to stick around for a few hours, just in case. He grabs the sketchbook still open to the drawing of the Brooklyn shipyard and a piece of charcoal and sits with his back against the doorframe, knees bent so he can squeeze in. The shapes of Bucky’s features – his nose, his cheekbones, his parted lips – begin to fill the page, until even Steve can barely keep his eyes open.

He rips out another page in the notebook, from the back – always rip from the back – and writes a short note to Bucky, and at nearly 5 am he too calls it a night and disappears into his own bedroom, flopping onto the bed with satisfaction and a newfound hope in what tomorrow will bring.

 

* * *

 

_ Bucky– _

 

_ Hope we were able to keep the bad dreams at bay last night. If you’re feeling up to it, I’ll make breakfast in the morning. We can get you coffee and cigarettes (I know you didn’t mention the coffee, but I think you’ll remember the combo fondly). Plus, we might want to leave the apartment soon. If we don’t come out, the rest of the team might come looking for us. _

_ Your Pal, _

_ Steve _

 

Bucky wakes up slowly, lazily. The sunlight is streaming through the horizontal blinds and casting stripes onto the patch of carpet he’s now occupying. There is a drawn-out, oddly warm moment of bliss before he tries to scratch his nose with a hand that isn’t there, and is once more is slammed with memories.

God, he misses his arm.

Despite the onslaught of  _ Steve, Brooklyn, the draft, Austria, trains, falling, falling, electrocution, killing, refusal, beatings, rods, so many rods, mouth guards, the girl who looked like him, the Potomac, Steve –  _ Bucky feels...okay this morning.

He reads the note. Steve’s penmanship, the curve of his “S” and the loops of his “e”’s, grounds him. It’s tangible proof that he remembers something correctly for once, and for that, he wants to kiss it and thumbtack it up on the wall. 

For the first time, Bucky leaves the bedroom of his own volition, cracking his neck as he enters the warmly lit, yellowing kitchen, where Steve is sitting with a cup of coffee and the morning’s paper, a pack of cigarettes on the table as promised.

“Oh, hi,” Steve says, clearly surprised to see Bucky as he sets the newspaper down on the kitchen table.

“Mornin’” Bucky says gruffly, joining him. They sit in silence, unsure if the events of last night took place and of what to say next. There’s been a lot of silence between them lately, a lot of silence in general. A silent seventy years of not knowing where the other was, of not knowing they were both alive, wandering aimlessly after being ripped unfairly from their own time. 

“Coffee?” Steve offers. 

“You got cream?”

“Cream? Buck, you  _ hate  _ cream in your coffee.” Steve gets up, walking toward the coffee maker on the counter. Bucky admires his height, his build, still surprised to see  _ Captain America  _ where skinny, fist-swinging Steve Rogers should be; he never quite gets used to it.

“I don’t hate cream in my coffee. I like it.”

“You used to mouth off at me every other day when I put cream in  _ my  _ coffee, ‘specially during the war. Told me real men drank their coffee black. You don’t remember?”

“I like cream in my coffee now,” Bucky whispers, confused. Steve’s brows furrow. 

“I got different tastes, now, I guess. Sorry.” He pours Steve’s creamer into the steaming mug of almond-colored coffee. The milk billows and plumes like a Rorschach. 

That’s something Steve’ll have to get used to. He’s Bucky and he’s not at the same time.

Steve changes the subject, though the one he chooses isn’t much better. “So, er, the doctors want me to provide weekly reports on how you’re doing. I think it’s stupid. I swear we didn’t bring you out of cryo just so we could...I don’t know... _ study _ you. I’m only gonna do it if you write them, or write them with me, at least. I don’t want a soul going behind your back ever again, and I want you to know I’m not...babysitting. That’s not what this is. You’re here because you’re my friend. Period.” Bucky can already tell he’ll get tired of self-righteous Captain America speeches, but it’s sort of cute, how Steve so compulsively tries to do the Right Thing. 

“I  _ want  _ you to keep an eye on me. I’m dangerous,” Bucky responds flippantly.

Steve sighs, sips his coffee and pulls out the chair at the kitchen table to sit down at it again after fetching the creamer. 

“Why...why did you wake me up, Steve? Why’d you bring me back out? I’m a weapon; we both know it.”

“Same reason, I’m guessing, that you pulled me out of the river. You’re family, Buck. You’re my best friend.”

Bucky gives him a look, not buying Steve’s heartfelt version of what happened.

Steve figured this question would come. He sips his coffee again to give himself a second to collect his thoughts. “The Avengers weren’t keen on it. I won’t lie to you, Buck, they’re not happy you’re out and about. Mostly, they agreed because they think...you might have intel.”

“They want me to remember Hydra secrets.” Bucky nods, his mouth a hard line. “Of course.”

“You could say that.”

Bucky snorts a little at that, reaching for the pack of cigarettes and the Black Widow zippo on the table, picking a cigarette from the box, always starting with the top left, just like before. For good luck, he used to say. He sets it between his lips, and is about to light up, when Steve interrupts.

“Oh, uh, Buck? People, uh, people don’t smoke inside so much anymore. Bad for the lungs, kinda disrespectful. Makes the smoke detectors go off and all.”

Bucky deadpans, and says around the unlit cigarette: “You’re kiddin’ me.”

 

It goes like this all day. Bucky keeps chain-smoking (out the window, as a concession) and asking hard-hitting question after hard-hitting question. It brings Steve back to the old days, sitting on the roof of their little apartment, Bucky picking Steve’s brain all damn day. “ _ Okay, okay. Aliens are gonna come take over the Earth,  _ unless _ one half of the human population voluntarily sacrificed itself. Would you sacrifice yourself?” he had asked one night on Sarah Rogers’ roof, under the stars with a then black-eyed Steve Rogers, who had his knees tucked to his chest and couldn’t help but keep his eyes glued to the constellations as he answered Bucky. Of course, questions like these were always pointless. Steve always sacrificed himself, the punk. Bucky, who had just started kissing girls and had a ciggie dangling between his lips, had punched his arm and whined about him bein’ no fun, no fun at all. _

Bucky now asks about everything. He wants to know who the President of the United States is (“Trust me, no you don’t, Buck”) and he wants to know how Steve got  _ into  _ the ice and how he got  _ outta  _ the ice (“No shit, an antarctic exploration crew is the only reason you’re sitting across from me right this second, huh?”) and about Natasha (“Is she on our side? I can’t read that one.”) and about Brooklyn (“They knocked the ol’ building down, huh? Can’t say I’m too surprised”) and about Peggy (“You miss your best girl, Rogers?”).

It’s sort of thrilling, to tell Bucky everything. 

 

* * * 

 

“I do not like this. Nope. Not one bit.” Tony exhales with frustration at yet another roundtable meeting that Capsicle has decided is not _important_ enough for him to attend. It’s not like they’re, you know, debating about whether to pull out of the Sokovia Accords _like Rogers wanted in the first place._

“Dude, you gotta chill, man,” Sam starts, but a cold look from Rhodey silences him.

“Rogers is on a mission of his own, Tony. He’s on the clock, even if it seems like he’s not,” Natasha defends.

“Making out with his boyfriend is not  _ on the clock _ , Red. But thanks for sharing.”

“Stark, you’re being obstructive,” Clint tries.

Tony tilts his head. “Wow, big word for you there, Barton! Keep up the hard work. Now that we’ve established that you’ve been practicing your  _ vocab, _ can we please talk about how Captain Too-Busy-To-Return-Our-Phone-Calls agreed to  _ not forget his Avengers duties _ when we gave the all-clear to give him his brain-dead boy-toy back?” 

“Watch yourself, Stark,” Sam mutters, tensing. Everyone looks uncomfortable and pissed off.

“Let’s talk about what we came here to talk about,” Fury interjects. He’s making a rare appearance in the Tower tonight. “The  _ Accords _ ,” he reminds.

“Sure, yeah, let’s relieve Rogers of all blame, per usual. Par for the course, really,” Tony snaps, defeated but never one to give up the last word.

Later, he spits at Natasha, “You wanted this. You go check on them.”

 

* * *

 

On a morning not too long after Bucky’s been brought back to the Tower, he suddenly looks up from his scrambled eggs across the table at Steve. A question he’s been chewing on finally blurts out of him.

“Did I have a sister?”

Steve puts down his fork, clears his throat. Bucky feels confused, like the question didn’t come out of his own mouth. But the girl who looks like him, who  _ looked  _ like him, keeps cropping up in his dreams, and he has to know.

“You did,” Steve replies, cautious. “Rebecca, but we called her Becca. Or sometimes you’d call her Becky, to get on her nerves. Rebecca Caroline Elizabeth Barnes. Three years your junior.”

“I...had a little sister,” Bucky whispers, and his voice breaks on the word  _ little.  _ Some brotherly instinct – to protect, to teach, to tease – that he’s never quite experienced before (at least that he can recall) rolls through him. A little sister. He’s almost giddy at the thought. “Tell me about her,” he urges.

Steve shrugs. “Oh, she was never much fun for us when we were young. We used to complain about her bothering us while we went and skipped rocks or built forts that said ‘No girls allowed.’ She was a lot more fun when we got older – when we were sixteen and she was thirteen. The three of us, I tell ya, Buck, we were trouble.” Steve gets a fond look on his face whenever he talks about the good old days. Brooklyn. Before. It sometimes bothers Bucky to watch Steve romanticize the past like this. Makes him wonder if Steve cares more about 1943 Bucky than he’ll ever care about Bucky now. That he can never live up the superhero that was James Buchanan Barnes circa 1940, with the dames and the cigarettes and the big mouth and the inexhaustible charm. That he’s not enough.

“What’d she look like? Pretty?” he asks instead, all soft eyes, thirsty for Steve’s stories about his family.

“Real pretty, Buck. Gorgeous. Long, dark brown curls, soft as hell. Imagine all your good features – y’know, without all the ugly ones – on a girl. When she started  _ becoming _ a woman – you know – boy, did the guys stare. You hated it. Every gentleman on the block knew you’d beat the livin’ daylights out of ‘em if they so much as laid a hand on her.”

“Good,” Bucky says after thinking on it some. At least he was a good big brother, once.

“Y’know, I actually think I might have a sketch...” Steve starts, getting up from his all-but-finished breakfast to find a sketchbook off the shelf (they’re  _ organized _ , Jesus). He flips through a few, puts them back, searching, until he finally stumbles upon a cherry red sketch pad that looks older than dirt. He rifles through to the right page with his huge fingers – it’s a wonder the guy can make such tiny, precise drawings with such giant hands – and places it in front of Bucky.

“Becca,” Bucky recalls instantly, once the picture is in front of him. It’s truly a blessing that Steve’s got such a gift with his art. Bucky continues, softly, “She tied your shoelaces together in the sixth grade playing cops and robbers at Billy Wallace’s house. Tripped you up – you lost a tooth.”

Steve laughs, amused that  _ that’s _ the first memory that comes back. “Yes, thanks for reminding me.”

“What became of her?”

“Ah. I was afraid you’d ask.”

 

* * *

 

They walk together, that very afternoon, in their Sunday best, with special permissions from Dr. Johnson (not Stark, who’d thrown his hands in the air) to leave the Tower for exactly 1.5 hours. Bucky’s in a baby blue button down and gray sport coat (both borrowed from Steve and just barely too big on him, which freaks Steve out, even after all this time) and dress pants; Steve’s dressed in a black suit with an American flag pinned on his lapel. They look sleek, sober, even as they sweat under the heat of the New York sun in June.

The drive hadn’t taken long. Bucky’d fingered his cuff nervously the entire way, probably unaware that he was doing it at all. His long brown hair – soft now after several showers in Steve’s bathroom with real shampoo – is tucked up into a bun, kept out of his eyes. He’s even shaved.

The cemetery comes into view just over the hill, and Bucky sucks in a sharp breath. Without really thinking, Steve stops in his tracks and holds out his hand. Today’s going to be hard – it might be a little easier with a hand to hold. But he looks nervously at Bucky, afraid this human contact is too much, too soon, that Bucky will reject this small peace offering.

His fear dissipates a long thirty seconds later, when Bucky finally takes Steve’s hand, fingers not interlocked but warm and together and  _ there.  _ Bucky nods.  _ I’m ready. _ Their shoulders bump as they walk forward.

Becca is buried in Brooklyn, only a few blocks from where Steve lived with his mother. Sarah Rogers is here, too – nobody made it too far from Brooklyn, back then – but that’s for another day. Today, Bucky needs to meet his sister.

Steve knows where the grave is. Of course he knows – it’s next to the almost grown-over hole in the ground where an empty grave and a tombstone reading “JAMES BUCHANAN BARNES. 1917-1945” used to be. Steve’d arranged for those to be removed the week after he found out Bucky was still, impossibly, alive. But Bucky doesn’t need to know about that, doesn’t need to ever hear about the hours Steve spent weaving grass in this very spot, talking out loud about this confusing century and its confusing people, about his Ma, about old feelings he’d left back in the nooks and crannies of Brooklyn, suppressed with fighting words and signing up for the army. Thinking the war and the serum might cure him, back when he thought the way he looked at boys was a disease.

He guides Bucky there the long way, giving him ample time to mentally prepare. It’s still morning, not too hot yet, and the graveyard is oddly quiet for Brooklyn, let alone New York City. Bucky doesn’t say much, but he doesn’t let go of Steve’s hand, either.

“Here,” Steve whispers respectfully, stopping them before the graying marble of Becca Barnes-Atkinson’s headstone. There’s a small, plastic bouquet beside the grave that looks a little sad – thankfully, Steve’d thought ahead and brought daisies, which he sets down beside the headstone now, breaking their hands apart. This time, he shoves his hands into his suit pockets, giving Bucky space. The headstone itself is small, simple – couldn’t afford much, even when she died in the early eighties. 

“My sister,” Bucky says, sniffling but not allowing the tears to fall. 

“She’s next to her husband, there,” Steve points to the grave next to hers. “Mr. Atkinson. Never met the guy, but the obituary says he was a real good fella. Sold real estate.”

“They have any kids?”

Steve realizes that’d be Bucky’s only chance at having surviving family members. It knocks him out to tell Bucky the truth.

“No, kids, Buck. She was infertile. Three miscarriages and she gave up, I heard. Well, read. There’s somethin’ about it in one of your biographies.”

“I...have biographies?” Bucky asks, looking offended, stiffening up beside Steve.

“Couple. I got ‘em, too. It’s real weird, Buck. We were just two regular kids from Brooklyn, gettin’ by, livin’ our lives. They made a spectacle out of us, that’s for sure.” 

Bucky looks like he’s glad now that he has to stay in the Tower, out of the spotlight. “Well, we were always a little bit of a freak show, weren’t we?” he says gamely, re-taking Steve’s hand as if to ground himself in the here and now.

“The freaky part was why a handsome, popular guy like you always hung around with an asthmatic punk like me,” Steve jabs back, smiling fondly. 

“I just figured you’d die without me. Couldn’t have your blood on my hands.” Even Bucky cracks a half-hearted smile. If one thing’s survived the endless years of turmoil and brainwashing, it’s Bucky’s inexhaustible ability to tease Steve Rogers.

“Right,” Steve chuckles solemnly. 

They stay at the grave as long as they can, standing and looking down on it, being in her presence as best they can. Steve shares tidbits about her and their childhood, when Bucky asks, and shuts his trap otherwise. He’s got no clue what Bucky’s thinking, really, but he gets an inkling that Bucky is finally, finally beginning to grieve.

 

* * *

 

Trust is one of Dr. Johnson’s favorite words. Do you trust Captain Rogers, James?  _ Dude couldn’t tell a lie with that Star-Spangled tongue if he tried.  _ Do you trust everyone in the Tower?  _ Fuck no.  _ Do you feel safe when you lay down in your bed at night?  _ There’s usually a warm lump next to me that could take out just about any threat so, sure. I guess.  _

But Dr. Johnson doesn’t usually stop after the easy questions. She pushes her glasses up her nose with her long, polished black fingernails and says gently, “And Bucky, do you trust yourself?”

 

* * *

 

Bucky, whose experimental serum dosage was of a lower grade than Steve’s product of government regulation, doesn’t quite have the impossible metabolism of Captain America. Rather, if he tosses back about thirteen shots of vodka (and can keep them down), he can earn himself 30-45 minutes of pure, unhindered inebriation, which he’d discovered quite quickly after walking away from Steve’s still-breathing body in the Potomac. He’d first run to Canada, and had holed up in a motel room going through withdrawal and praying for just  _ one  _ dreamless sleep, when he caught the neon of the liquor store signs through the window. 

That kind of binge-drinking is now reserved for special occasions. Sure, he’ll toss back a cold one at the end of the day, or after a rough therapy session or something, but that’s more for the sake of routine. No, these days he saves the finish-an-entire-fifth-of-whiskey-by-himself nights for the days he’s brought in for intel.

Once a week, they bring Bucky in for questioning. It’s supposed to be easy. Dr. Johnson has briefed Bucky’s interrogators on how to speak to a PTSD-ridden, brainwashed seventy-year POW; how to make sure he feels safe and comfortable and how to make sure they don’t push him too far. How to make sure Bucky feels like he has control and can leave if necessary. She’s explained in laymen’s terms that sometimes Bucky might speak in the third person, or forget who he is, or try to injure himself or others. She’s reminded them to be gentle with him, that he’s recovering and it would be a shame to make him to take any steps backward. 

The two CIA agents selected and screened to collect intel from Sgt. Barnes, however, ignore pretty much everything Dr. Johnson told them to do, both reeking of cheap cologne and boys’ club attitudes, bullying Bucky week after week to get the information they want.

And they want  _ everything.  _ They want Bucky to cough up locations of Hydra bases; they want to know who his handlers were (he winces as the words  _ Pierce  _ and  _ Rumlow  _ roll unwillingly off his tongue); they want to know which languages he was trained in and the complete floor plan of the Red Room; they want to know how the metal arm was installed and what code words they used; they ask about things unrelated to the Winter Soldier’s missions, and about how they punished him, and how many miles he thinks he was flown between locations on specific dates. They make him take off his shirt and explain every single ugly scar that mars his chest and back. The bullet wound. The lashes. The electric rods. The knives, real old-school torture. They pester him about the meaning of his trigger words, which he swears through tears never meant anything. But they don’t believe him. 

Even  _ thinking  _ about the words that activate the Winter Soldier makes that part of his brain shudder, ever-so-slightly, back to life, eerily reminding him that the Winter Soldier lives and breathes inside of him, no matter how adjusted to civilian life he becomes. He tamps  _ him _ away, pushes him back, but just feeling something shuffle around in that locked drawer in his mind gives him goosebumps and reminds him how one-in-the-same they are, he and the Soldier.

It’s like having your worst nightmare breathing down your neck.

It’s exhausting, and the two assholes prod and prod and call him names. Benny, for Benedict Arnold, is the shorter one’s favorite. Once, Bucky’s so close to activating the sedative cuff and tranquilizing himself in their interrogation room that one of the agents screams, “No!” and clamps a meaty hand over Bucky’s mouth to stop him from speaking.

The action jolted him so violently, to have his airways blocked and his fight-or-flight response triggered so intimately – that he bit the guy’s hand and then vomited right there in the room, chest heaving as he knelt over the floor, curled in on himself. He was in the same position when the agents fetched Steve to clean up their mess.

Yeah. Intel wasn’t going so well.

It makes it real obvious that somewhere, outside the Tower, people are forming opinions on the Winter Soldier. There are long tumblr posts by righteous social justice warriors who want him to be left alone – hasn’t he been through enough?! There are op-ed articles written by ‘patriots’ claiming that Captain America’s best friend is about as un-American as anyone could be. There are veterans writing letters to him – sharing their stories, relating to him as former POWs, even looking up to him. 

And these two assholes had made it pretty damn clear where they stood on the whole traitor or. hero debate.

After that particularly difficult session, Steve starts noticing the pattern – how Bucky always takes a step back in his recovery on Wednesdays after the CIA jerks interview him. Steve asks for Bucky’s permission to put an end to the intel meetings. He’s only half-successful – now, the interrogations take place in Steve’s apartment, not a claustrophobic 150 square foot room with two looming agents. Steve gets to stay now, at Bucky’s request. Thankfully, that puts an end to the cruelty.

Still, intel meetings are not something Bucky looks forward to. He’s gotten in the habit of doing a few yoga poses before them to ease himself into it, and it helps to answer the questions from his own ( _ Steve’s _ , he corrects) couch, but he can’t help it. Almost without fail, the meetings induce two-hour panic attacks, Bucky lying paralyzed on the floor as anxiety rolls through him in waves, Steve watching him scream silently and not knowing what to do.

It was after one of  _ those  _ kinds of days that Bucky opens a bottle of Jack Daniels by himself – Steve has a meeting with Thor and Stark upstairs, and Natasha’s out of town to God-knows-where this weekend, probably babysitting Clint’s kids in all honesty – and starts to down the honey-gold liquid, fast. 

Within minutes, the world is blurry at the edges, and standing and walking straight aren’t impossible but they’re certainly not easy. He’s not proud that it takes alcohol to settle his fried-ass nerve endings, but it’s not like his serum-enhanced liver can’t handle a little booze. 

By the time the bottle’s drained, he’s sloppy and grumpy and kind of wishes Steve was here. His head feels heavy, rolling on his neck, and he’s just settling into the couch cushions with the spins when his wish is granted; the front door jiggles and Bucky, now embarrassed, realizes that Steve’s meeting must’ve ended early.

All the lights are off, and Steve enters slowly, as if trying not to wake anyone, penny-loafers padding quietly on the floors as he sets down his phone and notebook that Bucky is sure is full of chicken scratch from the previous meeting. Finally, his eyes adjust to the light and Bucky sees him realize that the sideways shadow on the couch is Bucky.

“Steve,” Bucky greets, trying to stay composed. He’s forgotten that the empty fifth on the floor next to him is a dead giveaway, or that even without the evidence, Steve can probably smell his breath from a mile away; the hiccup that follows is the last nail in the coffin. Even this, though, feels familiar. Bucky having a little too much, Steve taking care of him. It was just about the only time from before that it wasn’t Steve hunched over the toilet, Steve who needed help standing up. 

Bucky tries to sit up. He figures it’s sort of pitiful to watch.

“Hey, hey, I’m comin’, no need to get up now.” Steve toes off his shoes and pads over to the couch where Bucky is slumped, having hit that familiar peak of the night where he’s too drunk and wants to be un-drunk but much like being at the top of a ski slope, the only way down is to ride it out.

“‘m sorry,” he slurs, eyes open but head bobbing slightly. “Now you got an ex-terrorist  _ and _ a drunk on your hands.” It makes Bucky giggle. Steve doesn’t laugh.

“I’m getting you some water,” Steve announces, walking over to the kitchen and turning on a few lights as he goes. Bucky’s reduced to a chorus of hisses as he shields his eyes from the light.

“You’re always taking care of me. Stop taking care of me. I’m a grown-ass man, Rogers.”

“You’re drunk,” Steve points out with a surprisingly sassy head-tilt, making his way back toward Bucky with a cold glass of tap water.

“Doesn’t mean I need to be taken care of.  _ Punk _ . I was gettin’ on fine without you. For a year. Got drunk plenty-a times. Never had no one holdin’ my hair then. Then you showed up. Ruined everything.” Bucky isn’t particularly angry. He’s just rambling at this point. 

“I’ve got no doubt you  _ can  _ take care of yourself,” Steve says, looking like he really wishes Bucky were sober for this conversation. “Thing is, you don’t have to. You don’t have to be alone with this. You don’t have to bear the burden alone.”

“So you  _ do  _ think I’m a burden.”

“James Buchanan Barnes, that’s not what I said and you know it.”

“Rogers, I–” Fuck. “Wait, waitwaitwaitwaitwait.” Bucky feels his mind go blank for a frightening second. He puts his remaining hand on his forehead, suddenly confused.  “Wait. Who...who am I?”

Steve’s eyes visibly soften. “You’re Bucky Barnes. Born March 10, 2017...”

“Right.”

The room goes quiet, the mood different, more serious. Steve sits down on the couch next to Bucky, who curls up by Steve’s side, his hand on Steve’s chest and his face smushed into Steve’s shoulder. He’s crying, a little.

“Sorry, Stevie. I– thanks for standing up to those CIA assholes for me.”

“Family takes care of each other,” Steve says simply.

“Yeah. But. But from now on, I can, I can do it myself, Steve. Save your fight for the big guys, okay? Go be Captain America or something. I can do it myself. I don’t  _ need  _ you,” Bucky drawls, his entire torso wrapped around Steve, a fistful of Steve’s shirt clutched in his hand.

  
  


**Part II**

**Downward-Facing Dog**

 

It takes nearly a month after they bring Bucky to New York for Steve to come to his senses. He’s in Central Park on a sunny June day, camouflaged (well,  _ he  _ thought so. Natasha had given him another eye roll accompanied by, “How many  _ times _ do I have to  _ tell  _ you, sunglasses and a baseball cap are not a  _ disguise _ ”) and sitting beside Nat on a black-and-white Navajo picnic blanket. The grass is lush in the heat of the summer, and the trees, fully leafed, shade them from the beating of the noonday New York sun. Steve’s sitting up, his arms locked around his bent knees, scanning the park every so often. He squints into the sunlight. Natasha’s defenses are down – she lays on her belly on the blanket, in only a crop top and cut-off jean shorts, sunning her back as her chest rises and falls against the Earth.

They’re quiet, as usual. The two of them are good at that – pensive and near-silent, but not alone _.  _ Steve picks at a yellow dandelion near the blanket; Natasha dozes. 

Steve had needed this. Being cooped up with a recovering ex-assassin, even though he’s  _ Steve’s  _ recovering ex-assassin, takes its toll. Bucky is moody, constantly angry at himself and occasionally misdirecting that anger at the only person around. He’s unnervingly silent when he moves and makes Steve jump whenever he accidentally sneaks up on him. There are good days when he’s out and about, even humming one time; days when he wants to hear stories about the past, when he wants to relay intel he’s collected subconsciously over the last seventy years, days when he can be coaxed into a few yoga poses on his bedroom floor to steady his breathing. But God, the bad days. Christ. Sometimes Bucky lays on the floor of his bedroom for hours, emitting ominous moans that Steve’s not even sure he realizes he’s doing. There are the nightmares of course, and the unexpected vomiting when Bucky’s brain gets confused and exhausted and memories, or sometimes imagined horrors  _ dressed _ as memories, splash across his conscious, surprising him. He describes it as getting carsick. Sometimes, during these episodes, Bucky lets Steve in, lets him hold his hair or rub his back or bring him water. Other times, Bucky glares at Steve and backs into the corner. Often, he reminds Steve that he’s simply not worth all this trouble. Sometimes through tears. That Captain America should be out there, saving the world, not watching Bucky retch into the toilet bowl over another bad dream. Just a bad dream.

All in all, Steve’s never been so exhausted in his life. And he fought in World War II for God’s sake.

But then it clicks, out here in Central Park, with a little distance from the whole, nonsensical mess of it, and Steve blinks from surprise at his own breakthrough.

“Oh.”

“What?” Natasha mumbles, her voice muffled as she talks into the blanket. 

“We’re just as bad as Hydra. And S.H.I.E.L.D.”

“ _ What _ did you say, Rogers?” she replies in a cutting voice. As someone who’s worked for terrorist organizations against her will herself, she’s not exactly  _ keen  _ on hearing him equate her life’s work with the Avengers to the Nazi atrocities that have spilled out of  Hydra and ultimately S.H.I.E.L.D. 

“I – sorry. What I mean is with Bucky. When Hydra had him, they never gave him a choice. Never let him decide when he was awake, what he was doing. They put him in that chair and made every single goddamn decision for him. And I can’t help but feel like we’re doin’ that now. Sure, maybe we got better intentions, but we’re doing the same damn thing. Taking away his choices. Every single day.”

Natasha is calmer now, understanding what Steve means. He can see her running through arguments in her head; she even opens her mind to speak. He knows she wants to tell him that they’re the good guys, that what they’re trying to do for Bucky is right. But Steve watches her struggle and ultimately come to the same conclusion he has: it doesn’t matter if the therapy and memory games and intel sessions are for Bucky’s own good – they’d stripped him of choice the minute they brought him out of cryo against his wishes.

“You’re right.”

Not exactly the words Steve wanted to hear, but true nonetheless. He heaves a fifty-state-sized sigh.

“What do we do?” he asks.

She shrugs. “We give him a choice.”

 

Steve shuffles home with his hands in his pockets; Natasha had offered to accompany him, but he’d declined. He needed to think.

He takes the long way, stands outside of the Avengers Tower for a minute, and then decides to lap it once more; he’s not quite ready to go inside. 

When he does enter the big, pompous glass double doors on the first floor (after voice, fingerprint, and cornea recognition, a full-body scanner, and answering two trivia questions about his own life correctly), Vision appears.

“Were you lost, Steven? I noticed you went around the block several times–”

“Not lost. Just needed some space,” Steve responds.

Vision gets the hint (well, he doesn’t  _ get  _ the hint but is capable of generating the algorithm in thousandths of a second to correctly  _ respond _ to the hint) and floats eerily away. Steve grimaces after him: Vision is not his favorite. Steve presses the ‘up’ elevator button, which glows red, and waits, taking off his sunglasses but leaving the ball cap on. He likes the cap. It reads  _ Brooklyn Dodgers _ . 

He knocks on his own apartment door, to alert Bucky, and then jiggles the old-timey key (they really had thought of every detail) in the lock and pops the door open.

Bucky’s on the couch in light gray, oversized sweatpants that Steve definitely recognizes as his own and definitely doesn’t find that endearing, thank you very much. Some book that Steve can’t make out is open in Bucky’s lap, and his dark hair is loose, falling around his face. Bucky looks up from the novel, and one side of his mouth turns up in a close-lipped almost-smile. He squints at Steve.

“Bucky, we’ve gotta talk about something.”

 

They sit at the kitchen table, across from each other, real formal-like. Bucky’s brow is furrowed – he looks confused about what this could be about but more confused that he’s being consulted about anything. 

Steve plays with his hands a moment, scratches a nonexistent itch behind his ear, buys time to collect the right words and string them together in an order that will make sense, all while pushing away worries about how livid the rest of the team will be. After all they’ve been through and the thinly built trust that they’ve only just begun to develop...well. He’ll face their wrath when it comes.

“Look, Buck, I – I want you here more than anything. The minute I knew you were alive, when you were standing on that bridge lookin’ like you didn’t know me, I made it my life’s mission to bring you home. I went crazy about it, Buck. And I– well, I like coming home to you in this apartment. I like not being the only dude in Manhattan who remembers World War II  _ and _ has all his teeth. But you’ve had doctors and scientists and madmen and politicians making choices for you for, what, 70-odd years? More? It ain’t my place to say where you go and where you don’t, Buck. It was wrong of us to bring you out of cryo and lock you up in here. So... I guess what I’m saying is...door’s unlocked. I’m sorry it took me this long, pal.”

Bucky freezes.  _ What?  _ He’s quiet, calculating, trying to read the expression on Steve’s face. Steve wonders what he sees there. Embarrassment? Regret? Worry?

“Okay,” is all Bucky manages. “You need to say anything else?”

“Nah, that’s, that’s it,” Steve finishes lamely. 

Bucky nods, still lost in thought. He pushes back his chair, gets up from the kitchen table, and politely pushes the chair back in (he’s picked up on the nuances of living with a roommate, the rules and responsibilities of it, quite quickly). He slinks into his bedroom, shutting the door behind him. 

Steve doesn’t know what to do. “Okay” certainly wasn’t an answer. “Okay, I’ll stay?” “Okay, I’m leaving?” He spends the better part of the afternoon dissecting every possible meaning of Bucky’s  _ okay _ . He naps on the couch. He receives a text from Sharon –  _ Coffee?  _ – but ignores it with a grimace. He reads the paper. He looks up a few things on his  _ Twenty-first Century To-Know List.  _ Bowe Bergdahl. The definition of “teen angst.”  _ A Series of Unfortunate Events.  _ Paris Hilton (who disgusts him to no end). Hurricane Katrina. Really Photogenic Guy. He groans.

He wakes up slumped at the kitchen table, not realizing he’d even fallen asleep. He jerks to consciousness uncomfortable and achy, and then remembers what he’d said to Bucky earlier. The microwave clock tells him it’s nearing midnight, and he curses under his breath.

He has to check. He can’t  _ not  _ check. Because what if?

He knocks a big fist against the door to the guest room – what’s become Bucky’s room the past five weeks. No answer. But that’s not unusual. He knocks again. Finally, he pushes the creaking door open, slowly, to give Buck time to stop him.

The bedroom is dark. 

It’s also empty.

The window’s open.

 

* * *

 

Bucky runs away. Duh. He’s trying to be good, trying to be compliant, but honestly? Fuck that. He’s been good before. He’s certainly been compliant before. And he’s very, very done with both.

He’s only brought one set of clothes – he doesn’t want to borrow from the Avengers, to feel he owes them anything. He wants to put as much between himself and that Tower as possible because...

Because he’s dangerous, sedative cuff or not. He’s seen it in the wary eyes of the others in the Tower, when he’s walked about on occasion. Natasha’s challenging eyes. Sam stiffening. Tony walking straight past him like he doesn’t exist. Mrs. Potts flat out turning around and walking the other way. Sharon glaring. The whole lot of them. Only Dr. Banner doesn’t look revolted when he spots the one-armed Winter Soldier, but that’s only because he’s too busy being revolted by himself and the monster itching beneath his own skin.

He doesn’t belong in a crew of world-saving super freaks. Sure, he’s got the super freak part down – they can all thank Arnim Zola for that – but there’s not going to be some...some revelation for Bucky. There’s no saint that’s going to come down from the heavens and save him. Jesus Christ himself can’t do anything for the Winter Soldier. There are atrocities that cannot be forgiven. There are forms of torture that a soul does not come back from. 

Although he figures that Stark’s got all of New York bugged and access to the cameras on just about every street corner, he’s not too concerned. For one, he’s balled up all of his socks and stuffed them in the armless sleeve of his hoodie, which he then shoved into the pocket of his black jeans. No one is looking for a two-armed Winter Soldier. Second, he’s pretty sure Stark wants rid of him at all costs, and wants to twist the knife for Steve in any way he can. Even if Stark has the technology, in fact, even if he spots Barnes running away, he thinks he can count on Tony to keep his big mouth shut. An unexpected ally.

As he pushes his way through the five o’clock crowds with his head down, he remembers back to a week ago, arguing with Dr. Johnson and Steve in one of their joint reporting sessions. It was like therapy, only Dr. Johnson was slightly more interested in his adjustment and Steve’s off-the-cuff analyses of Bucky’s behavior than how Bucky was  _ feeling.  _ That was saved for his actual sessions with an actual therapist, in which he sat silent and stoic and shared nothing for an hour. It was only when Steve was around that he felt obligated to at least  _ try. _

They’d been sitting in a small office on one of the lower floors of the Avengers Tower – Bucky still wasn’t allowed to leave, though he was told they were ‘building up to it,’ whatever that meant – and Dr. Johnson, with her stick-straight black-and-purple hair and tattooed arms, had been trying, again, to explain to Bucky that what he did as the Winter Soldier wasn’t his fault. Being irritatingly understanding, as per usual.

Finally, he’d cracked.

“What if I  _ liked  _ it,” he’d snarled icily. “What if, sometimes, I was told to kill three people and I killed five for the sheer  _ fun  _ of it?” he’d watched as the gravity of what he’d said registered in their eyes. “What if I got creative with it, huh? Got bored of just pumping people full of lead? Thought up new ways to take people out because I was such a good goddamn  _ shot _ that just shooting lost its edge? Lost its high? What then?”

“Bucky, you can’t’ve–”

“The hell I can’t’ve, Rogers. You weren’t there. You don’t know.”

Steve looked taken aback. “You’re right, Bucky. You’re right. I  _ don’t  _ know. I will never understand what you’ve gone through.”

“Stop! Stop...being...so...so...” Bucky was at a loss for words. “Stop forgiving me. I did what I did. I don’t care if Zola and Pierce and that whole string of assholes told me to, or they muddied up my brain, or whatever. The fact of the matter is I went out with my guns and I did what they told me and sometimes I fucking  _ enjoyed it.  _ Sometimes, when they said “Mission Report” I  _ smiled.  _ I fucking smiled, okay?”

“Bucky, I’ve killed people too–” Rogers had pleaded.

“No. No, you know the same serum they put in you was injected into me. Not the right dose, sure, which is probably why I’m smaller, a little more fucked up. But the same serum. The same shit, if you remember, that amplifies the person from before. That’s why you’re so...you, Stevie. You’re the dumb kid from Brooklyn who wanted to be in the army more than anything, who was so unequivocally good. Man, I remember you bringing a hurt pigeon into your Ma’s house once in ’34. It’s no wonder the serum took you in and spit out Captain America.

“But I’m the same way. Don’t you see? The Winter Soldier was the amplification of whoever I was before. The same Bucky you speak of so fondly, the one with the dames and the cigarettes and the big shoulders, he’s the asshole who unlocked what I became. It was in me all along. It was _ me _ all along.”

He’d shaken his head, angry tears pooling in his eyes but not brimming over, not then. He’d been  _ pissed  _ and wanted to be punished, not coddled. 

“No, Buck, that was the years of  _ brainwashing _ –” Steve had argued, but Dr. Johnson had cut him off.

“Bucky, we’re going to need you to calm down,” Dr. Johnson had said pragmatically, just as Bucky’s fist crunched against the wall, leaving an enormous dent in the splintered metal. 

He’d looked down at his own fist in horror. The bloody knuckles. The twitching thumb that he couldn’t quite feel. 

It could’ve been Dr. Johnson’s face he’d broken.

It could have been Steve.

“Прости,” Bucky had whispered, terrified and shaking.  _ I’m sorry. _

Immediately, the sedative cuff on his wrist had tightened – just as they’d promised it would, though he’d been afraid of it not working – and the feeling of a hundred needles jolted his body rigid for a moment before his heart started pumping the tranquilizer – three times the normal dose for a human, thanks to his ungodly metabolism – to the rest of his body. 

He’d slumped down to the ground, hitting his head on the desk, the world turning black and swimming away from him.

 

The episode runs through his mind – the ever-growing compilation of freshly created memories that he’s good at holding onto, that he clings to with everything he has, really – as he darts between pedestrians on the New York City streets, armed only with the bread knife from Steve’s kitchen. It’s the most exposed he’s felt since the day he pulled Steve out of the Potomac, though at least today he has on civilian clothes. Better for blending.

He’s not sure where he’s going, but he ends up in Brooklyn. If he’s looking for answers, it seems like the right place to start.

 

* * * 

 

There’s not a word in the English language – circa 1945 or 2017 – that can encapsulate the sheer anguish that comes with the only person who could possibly understand you actively choosing to leave you behind. For some reason, when he’d played it out in his head, Steve had expected Bucky to stay. He’d expected that given the choice, despite the ups and downs, the panic attacks and the retching, the internal strife that plagued him each and every waking minute, Bucky would still choose Steve. After all, Bucky had chosen Steve when he was scrawny and stubborn and helpless. He had chosen Steve even when the Army offered him an Honorable Discharge. He had chosen Steve when he reported back to his handlers: “I knew him.” He had chosen him – friend over mission – on that telling day in the helicarrier over the Potomac. He had chosen Steve again and again. Before and After.

This time, Bucky had chosen something else.

Steve found Bucky’s clothes folded. The bed was made (though Steve still wasn’t sure whether or not Bucky had actually touched it at all since coming home). No note. Just a breezeless night and an open window.  

That night, Steve slept on the floor of Bucky’s room.

 

Nat and Sam were the only people Steve could trust. Anyone else, and word might get back to Stark and the rest of the Avengers that Steve had let his recovering ex-assassin maybe best friend escape into the seamless New York City night. Into a world where he could easily disappear and never be found again. 

Natasha had knocked on his door the very next morning, and whatever snappy comment she’d been about to make when he opened the door melted on her tongue when she took in his red-rimmed eyes, the messy tuft of blond hair, the sunken face.

“He’s gone,” he said in disbelief. She held him for a long time.

* * * 

 

The other Avengers do find out, because 1.) there are no secrets when a bunch of people with enhanced hearing and abilities all share a laundry room; and 2.) Stark put a tracking device in the cuff. Because he’s not a fucking idiot.

But by then, it’s too late. T’Challa and Rhodes want Barnes captured immediately and brought in. Wanda suggests that as long as they keep an eye on Bucky’s whereabouts, he should be allowed this excursion. Stark, glad to have his parents’ cold-blooded cyborg-murderer out of the building, agrees with Wanda and refuses to disclose Barnes’ whereabouts. And he’s not delicate about sharing the fact that he wouldn’t mind if Bucky got hit by a car while he’s out there, either.

Steve, however, gets a mouthful from just about everyone  _ except  _ Nat and Sam. Even Clint tells him, “Trust, man. It’s a thing. Ever heard of it?” He’d stalked away, giving Steve the finger over his shoulder.

Steve knows he’s earned it, but he also knows that they all had no right to tell Bucky what to do, not anymore. It’s a fine tightrope he’s walking these days, and he knows it. He picks up donuts and leaves them in one of the conference rooms with a long apology, and begins working himself back out of the doghouse.

 

* * *

 

Natasha’d makes him text Sam. If anyone’s good at getting into Steve’s head without making it  _ obvious _ that he’s getting into Steve’s head, it’s Sam. A few years at the VA have made him pretty damn good at talking to soldiers in distress.

Sam takes him to one of the obstacle-course-like gyms designed to prepare the supers for battle. After the debacle and ultimate unraveling of S.H.I.E.L.D., Fury and the others had decided once and for all to keep themselves out of the hands of the U.S. government, though of course half the team had signed the Sokovia Accords, which complicated things. Still, they were a self-run, self-trained organization. Wanting nothing to do with D.C. or the Pentagon or the current Presidential bullshit, Stark had installed and upgraded full-sized training rooms, some individually designed. 

Today, they were in one of the simpler sparring rooms with padded mats, big tinted windows, and not much else. The exercise is good for both of them – Steve is all muscle and Sam is all speed. Steve hits with a little more oomph when Sam starts using his little flying robot friend, which thankfully makes Sam stop. Fists are thrown but none too hard, and they’re a relatively even match, although Steve – with his built-up frustration – wins more than he loses. Still, Sam puts Steve on the mat almost as often, wings slamming into Steve’s left side again and again.

It’s good to use his muscles; Steve’s been idle lately, tending to Bucky and not knowing what to do with himself when Bucky doesn’t want the attention. Afraid of leaving and afraid of bothering him. Despite the months off training save for a handful of spars, one particularly merciless encounter with a punching bag on a rough day, and his morning runs, Steve’s body hasn’t lost an inch. His reflexes are just as good, arms just as strong. It’s almost unnerving, how  _ good  _ his body is at fighting. He starts to understand Bucky, just a little. His meltdown the other day. Using the cuff on himself to Steve’s immediate horror. The feeling that your body is designed to destroy.

Eventually, Sam takes him down and he doesn’t get up; just lies back on the mat helplessly, sweat beading on his forehead and upper lip, chest heaving from exertion. He closes his eyes. Sam recognizes a surrender when he sees one; in an instant, his wings have retracted into the suit and he’s standing over Steve, hands on his hips, breathing just as heavily.

“This has been the longest week of my life,” Steve admits with his eyes still closed.

“I know, man. I know.”

“Was it like this when you lost Riley?” Steve asks, knowing it’s an unfair comparison but unable to stop himself. Bucky’s gone; Riley’s dead. But that doesn’t change the fact that he feels like he’s reliving Bucky’s death, nor the the fact that Bucky falls from the train again and again in his dreams.

“It was like this every day. But the good news is you know he’s out there. He’s like a butterfly, Steve.”

Steve laughs out loud at that. Bucky is many, many things, but a butterfly has never been one of them.

“Dude, I’m serious,” Sam says. Steve opens his eyes, looks at him. Sam tries again. “If you go chasing after a butterfly, it’s gonna fly the hell away from you. But if you sit still and wait, the butterfly’s gonna land right in your palm.”

“So you think he’s coming back?” Steve asks, jumping to conclusions.

“Steve, c’mon, man. I’m not making any promises here. This is just my two cents. The dude’s gotta do what he needs to do. It’s no wonder he’s got some sorting out to take care of. Doesn’t mean he doesn’t care about you. Way he looks at you, I’d wager it’s a whole lot.”

Steve sets aside the  _ way he looks at you  _ comment for later analysis. His mind is whirring. 

“I get it, Sam. Be hopeful, but not too hopeful.”

“That’s the best way to live life, I think.”

It’s weird for Steve to think of ‘living his life.’  _ His  _ life should have culminated in celebrating the end of the second World War, marrying a young and beautiful Margaret Carter, having 2.5 kids and a white picket fence, probably marching arm in arm with Martin Luther King, Jr. on the Washington Monument, giving a few anti-war speeches to college kids during the Vietnam days, retiring happily in Florida and watching as Hollywood made movies about him and the Howling Commandos. Maybe cutting the ribbon on a Captain America statue and then calling it quits.

The life he’s living now, the one that still doesn’t quite feel like  _ his _ , is none of those things. He’s got the body of a twenty-seven-year-old who is still hoping to wake up in the 1940s and find out this is all a dream. He’s confused about iPhones and slang and how nobody says what they mean anymore. Brooklyn doesn’t look like Brooklyn and the cheap tombstone he’d barely been able to afford when his mother passed from TB is hardly readable these days. He visits her grave regularly, though. He’s sort of obsessed with the tangible things from before, to remind him that Sgt. James Buchanan Barnes was real. His mother was real. He was real.

“Steve?” Sam asks, after Steve has gone so long without responding.

“Sorry, sorry. It’s good. Best way to live your life. Right.”

“You don’t  _ sound  _ good man,” Sam says, shaking his head.

“You worry too much,” Steve says, pulling a smile out of his ass to get Sam off his back. He even chuckles for effect. “Now enough of those ancient proverbs. Let’s get us a protein shake and a cold shower.”

“You take  _ cold  _ showers? Fuck you, man.”

 

* * *

Bucky sleeps in a Brooklyn alley for four days straight. He can smell himself; the sweat, the grime, dried blood on his left ankle from where the skin’d caught on a chain-link fence. Even the cats sniff him and turn away. He huddles, alone on the cement, on a moonless night. He pees in Starbucks, washes his hands and armpits unceremoniously in the sink. He curses his fucked-up metabolism for constantly needing to eat, which has him picking through garbage cans and occasionally purchasing a snack with one of his four wadded up hundred-dollar bills, realizing quickly that they’re not going to last long in this century. He curses the serum  _ again  _ when it doesn’t let him sleep, won’t let him escape. It’s hard to tune out the world when you can only sleep four or five hours a night.

How long can he go on doing this?

On the fifth day, he breaks into an apartment he’s been watching; when he concludes that it’s empty, he forces open the front door. The place is small and smells of mildew and mothballs, but it’ll do. The former tenant even left a bed behind – it’s lumpy enough that Bucky can manage to lay on it without feeling like he doesn’t deserve it. 

It makes him feel like he’s back in Bucharest, existing, not bothering nobody. No violence. No poorly hidden disappointment in Steve’s eyes. No doctor’s visits or needles. It’s lonely, and not much of a way to live, but it’s relatively safe. Besides, he’s not entirely sure he deserves any sort of good life. Apparently he didn’t think the people he’d murdered did.

But even Bucky surprises himself on the fifth night. He ambles over to the Brooklyn Public Library on a whim, recalling up some former piece of himself as he chats up the cute thirty-something librarian in her yellow sundress, charms her enough so that when she asks for ID to set him up with a library card, she doesn’t question the fake name or the fact that he can’t currently provide a form of ID. Eventually, he’s sitting behind one of the monitors and browsing the internet. He’s had plenty of time to familiarize himself with the internet since Bucharest, though the whole thing’s been rather overwhelming, and there are certainly many dark corners he’s happy not to have explored. Still, he prides himself on the fact that he’s better with modern tech than Steve, though the thought now leaves a pang in his seemingly empty chest.

Whatever. In the search bar, he looks up nearby yoga studios. He’s supposed to take care of himself, right?

It’s a rainy summer night. A musky smell is settling over Brooklyn, and as his boots stomp through puddles, Bucky Barnes is rather glad he’s found himself somewhere warm to crash. Something about sleeping outside in the pelting, constant, and unforgiving rain makes his chest tighten, brings on the panic attacks and hyperventilation that not only are miserable, but could give him away. 

He meanders in the direction of the yoga studio he’d found online after he waved goodbye to the helpful librarian, not sure what to expect. 

What he finds is a room full of young people – people who look his age, of course, but don’t know that the man on the yoga mat beside them just celebrated his 100th birthday. Well, maybe not celebrated. Experienced.  _ Was cryogenically asleep for.  _

The room is hot, overheated. He charms another person, this time the man sitting behind the registration desk of the second-floor yoga studio, and gets his first class for free. The guy’s kind enough to not question his greasy hair or the dirty, sweat-stained clothes. Bucky is told  _ yes, the room is supposed to be this temperature, sir! It’s called hot vinyasa. Good for the muscles. _

Bucky shrugs and goes along with it. He’d liked yoga when he and Steve did it on the floor, sometimes.

Ouch.  _ Steve. _

He shakes the thought, takes off his boots and rests them on the dainty shoe rack engraved with the phases of the moon and pads sock-footed into the studio, doubtful and feeling like he should turn around.

Mostly, he copies what the rest of the class is doing. Unrolls a mat from the front of the room. Ties his hair up in a bun on the back of his head. Stretches, lying on his back, the soles of his feet touching and his legs making a diamond shape on the floor. He lays his one and only hand on his heart, though the others keep a hand on their heart  _ and  _ stomach. There’s a decorative Buddha that looks like it’s spray-painted plastic, and some kind of weird mood lighting. Everyone looks hip in their tight pants and exercise-wear. It’s a diverse group – it’s Brooklyn after all – but everyone is synchronized, simple, breathing, forgetting. 

The teacher pads in, and even the guy’s  _ voice  _ is tender. He takes in Bucky – takes in the fact that one of his students looks homeless and only has one arm – but blinks it away and goes into what appears to be his regular spiel. He tells everyone to let go of their day and to breathe in through their nose, breathe out through their mouth. To breathe out hard enough to make a sound. They sort of roll around on their mats, which Bucky knows he would have found silly until he spent the better part of the month rolling around and hyperventilating on Steve’s floor. The man then asks everyone to close their eyes, asks anyone who feels uncomfortable with touching to raise their hands if they would prefer not to be adjusted.

Bucky is grateful. He raises his hand. He does not close his eyes in a room full of strangers.

“Whatever is stressing you out, whether it’s finals week or the kids or something just not working right – whatever is haunting you this week, everyone, I just want you to keep it off of your mat. Enter a new space tonight. Feel the four corners of your mat, yes, here. You are here and now.”

The class is oddly soothing. Silly, certainly, he feels unnatural and more out of place than he perhaps ever has, and yet the breathing, the flow, the movement, the distraction – it lifts something in him. Sweat pools around him thanks to the ungodly humidity of the room and the close, sweating bodies. Despite his handicap, he is able to keep up easily thanks to his enhanced musculature. Downward-facing dog is no problem for his single arm. He begins to appreciate the human body, what it’s capable of. He focuses on sinew on bone, breathes in and breathes out. Forgets, for a moment. But more importantly, he remembers. There’s a clarity here that he hasn’t experienced in 70 years, like the fog of Hydra, the veil in front of his eyes, the curtain of distrust, is lifting. The clouds have cleared and the sky is bluer than he remembers.

“Thank you so much, everybody,” the teacher says flamboyantly when the hour is up, now in a sitting position in the front of the room. It surprises Bucky that the thought of  _ this guy’s kind of cute _ crosses his mind. “That was really incredible. I hope you were able to expel your worries here tonight. The light and soul within me honors the light and soul within you.  _ Namaste _ .”

On cue, the lights come back on, the young people begin rolling up their mats and chatter refills the room. One girl, on the younger side of the group, keeps looking at him, like his name is on the tip of her tongue, but eventually she shakes her head and leaves like the rest of the class. Bucky can tell the teacher wants to corner him, clearly the newbie, and ask him something – probably about the arm – but Bucky evades, slinks out like the cat he is, and is back at his borrowed apartment before anyone can connect the dots and figure out they just took a yoga class with the Winter Soldier.

He sleeps on the bed that night, and he begins to think, hard.

As his body sinks into the mattress, limbs like jell-o but mind sharper than it has been in weeks, his body begins to respond to feeling better. The way that used to embarrass him in grade school, he remembers, a blush hovering on his cheekbones. What he’d used to wash away in cold showers when he lived with little pre-serum Steve Rogers. What he thought he’d lost, after the stint in ’43 under Zola’s knife before Steve’d come and liberated the 107th, but it had returned eventually, somewhere on the Western front, in a tent with Steve nearby.  _ And  _ the rest of the Howling Commandos. That had been weird; relief that his body was still capable of arousal, but also dread at having popped a boner so near the rest of the unit.

It’s unfamiliar and familiar all at once. Brainlessly, he knows what to do with himself. He takes care of it robotically, his hand knowing how to move and his breathing getting heavy, not quite a moan but certainly heading in that direction. For someone who feels like a cyborg seven days a week, his body’s response is oddly... human.

Christ. He’s never been so fond of an erection.

He finishes, not thinking of anything in particular. Not the red-lipsticked girls he kissed before the war. Not the punk he shared an apartment with and sometimes,  _ sometimes  _ had hot and bothered dreams about. Certainly not the modern pornography industry he’d stumbled upon briefly when he’d first discovered the Internet ( _ Christ, didn’t we just look at magazines when we was kids? _ he’d thought, appalled). 

No, he doesn’t think about much of anything as he pumps himself to climax. His mind is beautifully, mercifully blank for the first time in a long, long time. He doesn’t even clean up the mess until the morning.

 

* * *

 

Blocks away, Steve is also lying awake in his bed, distraught. He thinks some about what Sam said earlier, something about “the way Barnes looked at him.” Looked at him? That was a weird thing to say, even for Sam.

He thinks back to Bucky’s meltdown, nearly two weeks ago now, the name ‘Stevie’ rolling off his tongue so naturally, like the old days. 

He thinks of what that did to him, how it grabbed him behind the navel and sent a shock through his usually unshockable system – a feeling that had mostly been associated with red dresses and the click of Peggy Carter’s heels...

Shoot. He never texted Sharon back. The thing was, he’d been losing interest. It wasn’t exactly easy to maintain a relationship while you were stressed about your cryogenically frozen brainwashed killer of a best friend being readjusted to civilian life in Manhattan. Not only was he too busy to make phone calls from Wakanda, and too tired to deal with the time differences, he just didn’t care much at all. He’s a little disgusted with himself over it, but Steve comes to terms with the truth: he was using Sharon as a distraction. It feels wrong. Even  _ he  _ expected more from himself. He’s Captain America for Christ’s sake. But the truth is the truth: Sharon never was more to him than a pretty thing to lose himself in. 

It makes him feel dirty. He takes a shower and vows to never use a man or a woman like that, ever again. Especially as she’s so intelligent and empowered and badass and so  _ not  _ the kind of person Steve sees as just an object. Christ.

In the shower, he dwells on Bucky leaving, and whether or not his friend will ever come home to him. Whether he’ll ever  _ want  _ to come home to him. Whether Steve will ever be home to Bucky the way Bucky already bleeds  _ home _ to Steve’s big old nostalgic heart.

He tosses and turns the whole night long, his brain full of confusing dreams and an aching awareness of how damn empty the apartment is tonight – how cold the other side of the bed is.

 

* * * 

It’s the eighth day since Bucky took off, and as he sits staring at the empty refrigerator, he realizes that groceries are going to be the deciding factor in the whole debacle.

He’s questioning his decision to leave. He’d left to make the Avengers safe. He’d left because he didn’t need nor deserve any pampering or Steve’s seemingly endless forgiveness. He didn’t deserve the fancy building that was always the right temperature, full of delicious food, protected and safe. The whole damn  _ building  _ was intelligent. It literally talked to him sometimes.

He was an abused soldier. It was hard enough to adjust to the luxuries of the modern world, but harder still to join the privileged 1% by living with Tony Stark. Who, by the way, wouldn’t even look him in the eye. 

But – and he’s not proud of it – he’d left a bug in the apartment. Just to make sure the Avengers weren’t on his tail, he’d told himself. Just to give him a heads up if they sent a search party after him, he’d thought.

But who is he kidding? He left the bug to keep an eye on Steve.

And every night, without fail, came the quiet crying of a very desolate Steve Rogers. The bug’s good quality. He can hear when Steve’s pencil scratches the paper, the rustle of his newspaper in the mornings. Bucky can imagine Steve wandering about the apartment, a little lost, a little frazzled – not knowing what to do with himself. Looking comically too-big next to the little vintage furniture. Can almost see him opening the door to Bucky’s room, hopeful. Or masochistic, depending on how you looked at it. 

Bucky had left for Steve’s own good. But the more he waits, the more he realizes that perhaps the best thing he could do for Steve is relieve him of his absence. 

Perhaps.

He’s been mulling over the idea since the first night of yoga, but today things are coming to a head. The fridge is empty. He needs food, desperately. He may not think himself worth much, but James Buchanan Barnes’ll be damned before he’s starved again. Glaring into the open fridge, its fluorescent light illuminating his face in the dark apartment, Bucky reviews his options.

Option A: To buy groceries. To commit to this abandoned apartment, this quiet and forgotten corner of Brooklyn. Maybe protect Brooklyn with the passion of that blind dude kicking ass in the six blocks of Hell’s Kitchen. Meet the neighbors. Flirt with the librarian for the hell of it. Get a new name, keep things real quiet. Eventually leave the city – too high-risk with the Avengers so nearby. Maybe see the Grand Canyon like he’s always wanted.

Option B: To not buy groceries. To let his stomach drag him back to the Tower, where there’ll be complicated feelings and people wanting him to work through his “emotional trauma” and Steve Rogers applauding every memory Bucky remembers like a parent watching their stupid baby babble its first words. To not commit to this on-the-run life in a borough that’s long forgotten James Buchanan Barnes, and return to the one man on Earth who hasn’t. 

He goes to bed on an empty stomach that night, undecided.

 

* * *

It’s been over a week, perhaps the longest of Steve’s life, and that’s really saying something. With each passing day, Steve knows the chances of Bucky coming back get lower and lower, like a parent waiting for the police to find their missing child.

As per his usual routine (at this point, Steve honestly can’t help himself), he opens the door to the guest room before going to bed in his own room, just checking, he tells himself. Because you never know. 

Unsurprisingly, the room is dark. Empty. 

He turns away, closing the door with yet another chip on his shoulder. He’s padding down the hardwood-floored hallway in nothing but a baggy pair of sweatpants and Hawkeye-themed socks (they really did have a problem around here) when something dawns on him: the window was closed.

He hadn’t closed the window. He had explicitly  _ not  _ closed the window because, well. You never knew.

But the window, tonight, was definitely, 110% closed.

Steve tiptoes back, trying to be quieter this time though stealth has never been one of his leading attributes. He pokes the door open, more careful now, and takes a closer look, the light from his iPhone shining into the bedroom.

He hadn’t thought to look at the bed – Bucky’d never slept in it when he  _ was  _ here. But tonight there’s a Bucky-sized lump in the bed, fast asleep with its back to Steve. Chest rising and falling, rising and falling.

There’s a moment of pure disbelief, and Steve almost falls to his knees. He came  _ home.  _ He chose Steve. Steve swallows hard, incredulous. He has to hold onto the door.

That’s what happens when you set your compass to a person instead of the stars, though. You always, always come home. Perhaps something in Steve did know all along that Bucky would come back. That he would come back for Steve after all. 

Now Steve has a choice, though; a dilemma of sorts. Does he just go back to bed, and– what? Wake up and pretend that he didn’t sneak into Bucky’s room in the night? Pretend to be surprised when a groggy, pre-coffee Bucky wanders into the kitchen with gunk still in the corners of his eyes? Tell him he snuck into his room and fear startling Bucky who still might leave again? 

Finally, he settles on a decision. Steven Grant Rogers is done wasting time. Lord knows he’s wasted plenty of the time he hadn’t deserved since he woke up in this second-chance century. He’d wasted time not telling Peggy that he loved her and only by chance and a whole lot of luck did he get to tell her seventy damn years later. Of course, she couldn’t remember, not really. So he’d gotten to tell her over and over, time and time again. More and more borrowed time. And then he’d lost her, too.

Not today. Not today.

Steve moves toward the bed, trying to keep quiet despite his stature and bulk, his shadow from the hallway spilling out in front of him as he creeps toward the man snoring before him. Slowly, Steve kneels beside the bed, cautious not to startle. Bucky’s breathing hitches but he doesn’t wake or turn over. Bucky looks exhausted.

In the dark of the night, with only the yellow moonlight sprinkling into the room through the definitely closed window, Steve extends a careful hand that hovers over Bucky’s armless shoulder, sucks in a deep breath, and brings the hand oh-so-gently down on Bucky’s shoulder, right on the awkward, armless flap of the T-shirt he’s wearing.

 

* * *

 

Bucky feels the attacker touch him and whirls, pulling the bread knife out from under his pillow reflexively and slashing it blindly at the silhouette towering over him, catching it on the wrist and drawing blood as he yelps in shock, crouched at the end of his bed. For a second, he’s not even sure how he got there. Then,  _ Steve. The Tower. I came back. _

“ _ Ow,”  _ Steve exhales, pulling back immediately and examining the side of his wrist. There’s a long cut where Bucky caught him by surprise. It’s not bad or deep, but it looks like it stings like a bitch.

“Shit,” Bucky says, snapping out of it and dropping the bread knife to the floor where it bounces with a clang. He rubs his eyes. “Sorry, shit, Steve, God,  _ sorry– _ ”

“Hey, hey buddy it’s alright, just a scratch, I shouldn’t have crept up on you in the night like that,” Steve responds, hushing him. Bucky moves to sit on the bed, legs dangling off the side, his socked feet inches from where Steve kneels. “It’s good to see you, by the way,” Steve adds.

“Here,” Bucky says, pulling his T-shirt off in one movement and wrapping Steve’s wrist one-handed to staunch the bleeding. Bucky is careful as he tenderly uses the corners of the T-shirt to wipe the drip of crimson blood running down Steve’s arm toward the elbow. Steve watches in wonder, looking tired, and it reminds Bucky of all the times he’d pulled Rogers from a back-alley fight, Steve jabbering away about his noble cause of the day (“He called Old Man Skinnard a faggot, Buck, and that’s just not alright, not s’long as I’m around”) and tended to his black eyes and fresh cuts.

Everything about tonight feels familiar.

“Thanks, Buck,” Steve says, a small smile on his lips. He’s staring like he can’t tear his eyes away, like Bucky might disappear if he does.

“Don’t thank me, you big lug. I’m the one who damn near put a bread knife through your arm. I’m sorry, Steve. I’m...I’m  _ sorry, _ okay?” He hopes Steve knows that they’re not talking about the bread knife or the cut that’ll be healed over in an hour anymore.

“You did what you had to do.”

Bucky nods, tears pooling in his eyes because he can see, finally, that he’s broken through to Steve. That some part of Steve sees him now, really  _ sees _ him, not for the helpless, romanticized World War II American hero that many take him for, nor for the heartless pawn of an assassin known as the Winter Soldier. No, Steve sees him for exactly who he is, in this moment, on this night. The combination of all the different layers of Bucky Barnes. The Bucky who whistled while he put his Ma’s groceries away and cleaned up after his little sister so she wouldn’t get herself into trouble. The quiet, reserved and disturbed Bucky who fell from the train, never quite the same after Zola’s first capture. The Bucky who ran away from Steve’s apartment a week ago. The Bucky who asked to be put back into cryogenic sleep to save his country and his sole remaining friend. The Bucky who murdered Stark’s parents on camera. The Bucky who remembered, and was punished by his handlers for remembering until he forgot again. The Bucky who was wiped so many times he forgot his own fucking name. Steve sees him, not as the reductionist who looks at Bucky’s many faces, but finally as someone who sees the entire compilation of the hurt, broken man.

Bucky’s too choked up to say much, and Steve’s being cautious. Bucky remembers the talks with Dr. Johnson about the importance of consent to recovering POWs, and it appears that Steve does, too.

“I...may I?” Steve mutters vaguely, as smooth in 2017 as he was in 1941.

Bucky swallows, looks at Steve with confusion, unsure what Steve means. What’s he want?

“Sorry, it was stupid, never mind, that would be weird, I mean we only did that back then because we couldn’t afford another mattress, or heating.”

“ _ Oh _ . C’mere,” Bucky sighs, rolling his eyes at Steve, finally understanding what he means. “C’mere, you jerk.”

Steve’s smiling like he hasn’t smiled in  _ years _ , and Bucky scoots over in the full-sized bed and Steve gets up off his knees and slides in under the covers, his wrist still wrapped in Bucky’s bloody T-shirt, their socked feet tangling in the limited space of the bed. 

It’s oddly innocent. Mostly a human need for touch, for warmth, for acceptance. Bucky flips over, facing the window, his back to Steve, who curls himself into a parenthesis around Bucky, one big arm draped easily over his ribcage. Beside him, Bucky feels protected, like it’s the first time he doesn’t have to watch his back since they brought him back from the dead. The tension in their bodies oozes out of them, sinking into the too-soft mattress beneath the too-cozy covers, snoring against one another, warm skin on warm skin. They pass out almost immediately, as if they can finally sleep in this century for the first time.

 

* * *

 

Steve comes-to first, scaring himself a little as he realizes he’s been curled, not around his pillow like usual, but around a living, breathing person. This time, it’s not Sharon (though he’d admittedly only slept with her twice, and cried on the drive home both times, hollow inside). It’s someone else; someone familiar, even though both of their bodies have changed so much since the last time they woke up like this in New York.

He can’t help but smile as he lifts his head off the pillow, props it up with a hand as his elbow sinks into the mattress. His movements and the now-risen sun make Bucky stir, squirming backward into Steve and grunting (or is that a moan?) in surprise. He flips around ungracefully, what with his sleep-addled brain and one remaining, cuffed arm, to face Steve.

“Sorry, pal,” he says, looking at Steve. There’s a hint of a grin there. “Guess you’re stuck with me.”

Steve grins back, relief pumping through his body. He flips onto his back, putting a few inches between himself and Bucky, both arms now stretched up behind his head.

“Punk, I’ve been stuck with your sorry ass since 1928.”

And they laugh, quietly, at the sheer ridiculousness of it all, bodies shaking silently in the crisp, unbelievable dawn. Another tomorrow they hadn’t known they’d have.

 

* * *

 

Dr. Johnson ( _ “Call me Shelly,”  _ she’d insisted, but it hadn’t stuck) wants to see Bucky immediately. He agrees, but on one condition.

Of all the restaurants in Manhattan he could choose – the hipster food trucks and the New York style pizza and the famous gyros – Bucky demands Chipotle for their lunch with Dr. Johnson. Of course, after his little AWOL stint, and the fact that Bucky’s ever-present cuff is still set to tranquilize upon detecting the Russian language, he’s still not allowed to leave. Chipotle will be a to-go order. 

“What? They had it in Bucharest,” Bucky says when Steve gives him a look regarding his choice in cuisine. “And you’re buying.” He shoves Steve jokingly, the way they used to when they were teenagers. It takes Steve every ounce of effort to not wince when the black-and-silver cuff hits his side – the thing is heavy and cold.

Steve sees what Dr. Johnson’s trying to do with this little takeout luncheon of a meeting – more informal, more casual. She’s trying to help him adjust. Achieve ‘normalcy,’ she would call it. 

Steve’s there, partly because of his own curiosity, partly because Buck wants him there. He wears civilian clothes – a black sweatshirt with white drawstrings and crisp dark jeans – Stark really likes to pump the AC – and of course his Brooklyn Dodgers baseball cap. Bucky looks similar – he’s starting to grow a beard, now, and sports a maroon T-shirt with the sleeve pinned where his arm should be, and black jeans. Dr. Johnson looks unapologetically goth with her dyed jet black hair, detailed tattoos revealed by her black tank top (perhaps she and Nat have been sharing clothes), black skinny jeans and black heels.

When they all sit down in one of the lounges of Avengers Tower that even Steve’s never seen before (the place is so goddamn big), Dr. Johnson wastes no time getting to the point.

“You left,” she says to Barnes. 

He chews the chunk of burrito he’s bitten off slowly, and swallows. With chagrin he notices the small notepad she’s pulled out of her purse. As if he’s got something important to say.

“Yeah,” he replies, nodding uncomfortably.

“Why did you go, James?” He takes another minute, swallowing another bite of burrito. Steve’s lunch is untouched; he’s waiting, poised, for what Bucky has to say.

“Sometimes the best way to protect someone is to leave them behind,” Bucky says, dabbing at the sides of his mouth with a napkin, thinking. Steve can tell Bucky is straining to find the words, to be honest. Honesty is something they’ve been working on. 

“Is that what you were doing? Protecting?”

“Look, ma’am, I don’t trust the cuff. I can’t trust my own brain ever again. I’ve lived my life, Doc. I died in 1945 like I was always supposed to. Killed in action – noble enough for me. Died protectin’ my friends, my country. Something my Ma could live with. Who I became after that, the fucking black-hearted phoenix they forced out of the ashes...he wants to be good, Doc. He wants to be so good. He wants to undo everything, use his power for good an’ all that. But he can’t. He’s already been reborn once. How many chances does a man get to be reborn?”

“Is that how you think of it, James? Rebirth?” she inquires, taking notes, her burrito forgotten and getting cold as well.

“I dunno,” he says, taking another bite to slow the conversation and looking like he’s said too much already. It seems like he’s starting to get stressed out. Steve’s worried – it was the reason he left in the first place.

“Bucky, just ‘cause it’s in your brain don’t mean it’s you,” Steve says into the silence. Bucky looks like he appreciates that Steve’s trying, but the words don’t stick.

Bucky tries again. “What we’re doing here, it’s unnatural and it’s risky. My mind ain’t my own anymore. Maybe sometimes. I ran because what if I come-to in the middle of the night with my hand around your neck, Steve? What if you forget how to say somethin’ in Russian? What if I choke you so bad you can’t even speak?”

Bucky looks down, scratches his stubble. 

“I can’t let that happen, Steve. You’re the only thing that matters to me in this strange century.”

“Where’d you go?” This time, Steve asks the question.

“Brooklyn. Thought it might have answers or something. It didn’t, not really. Nothing left from our time there to really remember.” Bucky shrugs.

“Yeah, I felt the same way when I went back,” Steve sighs. “Wish it was the same, sometimes.”

“So why’d you come back?” Dr. Johnson hedges, redirecting the conversation.

“‘Cause whatever risk I am to everyone in the Tower and everyone in this city, it’s lower than the 100% chance of Stevie bein’ miserable without my punk ass to boss around.” At this, he smiles in Steve’s direction. Steve returns the toothy grin. Dr. Johnson doesn’t seem particularly amused, but there might be a hint of a smile in her eyes.

“Do you feel like this is becoming a co-dependent relationship, James? Does it feel normal and healthy to you?” she asks. 

“Look, no offense, but there ain’t nothing normal or healthy about two guys fighting a war in the ‘40s only to pop back up together in 2017 without aging a damn day. I’m not asking the world for normal or healthy anymore, Doc. I’m takin’ it one day at a time.”

“Seems like you’ve started developing some coping mechanisms, then. I’m proud of you, James. Looks like you’re finally biting off exactly as much as you can chew.”

He gives her an open-mouthed smile, revealing the half-chewed burrito in his mouth.

“Very funny, Buck,” Steve says, rolling his eyes.

There will be more talk, sure. Bucky will have to spend time reassuring Steve that he’s not leaving again. Dr. Johnson will make Bucky talk to a psychiatrist about the experience in detail – he’ll tell them about the alley, the apartment, the cats. How it all rested on groceries. They’ll give him tetanus shots when he shows them the infected cut on his ankle from the chain-link fence. But for now, it’s enough.

 

Dr. Johnson knocks on the door to the apartment two days later, and when Steve sees her face approaching on the security cam, his heart sinks. What’s gone wrong this time? Who’s hurt Bucky? Or worse, who’s Bucky hurt? He’d disappeared downstairs an hour ago without telling Steve where he was going (which was supposed to be a good thing, giving Bucky these normal privacies, but  _ fuck _ ). 

Steve unlatches the door and opens it to a grinning Dr. Shelly Johnson, a long piece of black leather wrapped around her wrist, and Steve realizes that at the end of the rope of leather is a ... puppy.

A puppy?

“Can I come in?”

 

“This is a surprise for James,” Dr. Johnson says in a friendly sort of way, pushing her glasses up her nose with one hand as the other rubs the velvety forehead of a three-legged jet black labrador retriever pup. “Black labs, well, black dogs in general are very hard for humane societies to get rid of, you know. I guess the dark fur makes people afraid. And really, they’re as harmless, or harmful, depending on how you see it, as any other dog.”

“Okay...” Steve says, uncertain.

“Have you never heard of a therapy dog, Steve?” she asks gently; always gentle with Steve and Bucky and their perpetual confusion in the twenty-first century.

He shakes his head slowly. “A therapy dog? What, you sit on his couch and he tells you what to do with your sorry life?” Steve’s mouth turns up as he says it, and he even reaches out a hesitant hand for the dog to sniff, and eventually start licking.

“Not quite,” Dr. Johnson smiles back, like she’s enjoyed getting to know them over the past few months, refrigerated nut cases though they are. “Studies show that human-animal interactions can not only re-stabilize dopamine and serotonin levels, but also enable people to open up and articulate their feelings better. Animals are often relatable in ways we humans can never be. Furthermore, they’re great for patients with anxiety and can bring blood pressure–”

“Woah. Can you translate that into old-timer for me, Doc?” Steve’s smile is wry now. No one covered that stuff in _ his  _ eighth grade biology class.

“I think having a dog around would be good for your friend,” Dr. Johnson simplifies, smiling at the dog. “She’s good at making people happy and calming them down.” 

Steve scratches his head. “Back in the day, we didn’t have any of this...this fluff. You know, if you were sad, you buckled down and swallowed it and took care of your family. And anxiety? You don’t have the luxury of anxiety in the Depression. Afraid of people? Afraid of traffic? Afraid of big machines? Didn’t matter, you had to eat.”

“Steve?” Dr. Johnson says, dropping her voice. “It’s not the Great Depression anymore. People can take care of their needs, now. Even the invisible ones in our brains. Those need healing and care and medication just the same as someone with a broken arm needs a cast. You can take  _ care _ of yourself, Steve. Bucky, too. You guys don’t have to deprive yourselves, you know that, right?,” she finishes, putting her hand gently on Steve’s forearm. He shudders under her touch – her words have sent a chill through him.

Steve takes a deep, steadying breath. “So what’s the dog’s name?”

 

Dr. Johnson leaves Steve about thirty minutes later, the leash now wrapped around his own hand as he scratches Belle behind her ears. She’s a young lab, only two, and looks at him like he just shit a million bucks. He sorta likes her, anyhow. She follows him around the kitchen when he goes to make himself a sandwich, and it’s not  _ his  _ fault if a few scrap pieces of turkey find their way onto the floor. 

Bucky comes back that afternoon – apparently Natasha had insisted on getting their hair cut (in the salon downstairs, of course, because Avengers Tower has every amenity imaginable) and they’d grabbed coffee (also in the Tower) afterward. He looks good today, hair combed, his face flushed and not pale, his hand relaxed and not in its usual clenched fist. 

“The fuck is that?” Bucky says, astonished  when he opens the door and is immediately approached by a well-behaved but clearly excited labrador, her tail a speed boat rudder behind her.

“ _ She _ ,” Steve corrects, moving to the door to pull her away from Bucky, “is our dog for the weekend. Dr. Johnson wants us to, uh, babysit her. It’s the least we can do. Her name’s Belle.” 

Steve didn’t think ‘therapy dog’ would go over well with Buck.

 

* * *

 

Bucky doesn’t touch the dog much; she’s cute but needy, always trying to cuddle or stick her nose in their laps. Steve, on the other hand, is overjoyed. He plays fetch with her all over the house, gives her treats and is definitely sneaking her things under the table when they have dinner. She sleeps beside him in his room both nights that she’s there, sprawled out on her back in the most preposterous position with Steve curled around her, an actual smile on his sleeping face. 

The second night, Bucky wakes in the guest room in a sweat, cold and alone with his heart about to beat right out of his scarred chest. As is routine, now, he drags his sheets to Steve’s room, toes open the door silently, and looks in to see...

...well. Steve and Belle, all curled up and soft-looking. A pretty picture if there ever was one. 

A picture.

Bucky turns on his heel, hunts down the cell phone that’s been gifted to him – it’s programmed to only allow him to message the various Avengers, which is annoying, but its camera still works. Bucky shuffles back to Steve’s room, cell phone in tow, and presses open the door a little more, lifts the phone, and just manages to snap the picture before Belle hears him and looks up, at attention with her ears perked, panting in that way that kind of looks like she’s smiling. Steve sleeps through it, a rock like he’s always been. 

It’s the first picture Bucky’s ever taken

Bucky’s not seen Steve look so...at ease, in a long, long time. It’s the least he can do to not wake him tonight. He closes the door gently and crawls back into his own bed, not even miffed. The image of Steve and the fur ball runs circles in his mind, and he drifts back to a far more peaceful sleep.

On Monday, as promised, Dr. Johnson returns to pick up the therapy dog.

“Wish we could keep her,” Steve says in the living room, a small mountain of Belle’s things – her bowls and the like – sitting on the coffee table before him. “She’s a sweetheart.”

“Well, there’s certainly plenty of dogs like her. And James? How did you like Belle?” Dr. Johnson said, looking over at Bucky.

Bucky shrugs. “Oh, she’s alright. A little slobbery for my taste.” His eyes crinkle warmly at Belle as he says it; the dog makes Steve happy, and he is fond of her, even if he doesn’t want her to cover him in black hair. 

Dr. Johnson clucks something about the time, reminds Bucky of his appointment tomorrow afternoon and inspects his sedative cuff, a habit of hers, and disappears out the front door with a tight-lipped smile, her all-black outfit, black ink tattoos, and oil-black hair matching Belle’s rump with a tail that skips along beside her, dog toenails clicking against the floors.

Bucky narrows his eyes after her. He’s onto her game, but he doesn’t care. Not if it means Steve’ll the help he needs. 

**PART III**

**Warrior I**

Honestly, Natasha is impressed with  _ herself  _ on this one. She’s been meaning to get the prowling mama tiger that is Steve Rogers  _ out  _ of the goddamn Tower. She gets it – he’s lost Bucky too many times to let him out of his sight, but also, she’s starting to see that Steve’s going all Helicopter Parent on Bucky’s ass is suffocating him.

She can see this because she’s one of the very few people who actually comes and goes from Steve’s apartment. It doesn’t exactly make her popular with some of the other Avengers, but she was through with caring what people thought of her a  _ long  _ time ago. Steve is her friend, and now Bucky is – by both default and, unfortunately, shared lived experience.

There’s something about Steve Rogers that drew Natasha in the day she met him; it took a long time to be able to put her finger on it, but now she realizes that she’s never met another person who was as displaced as her. Not displaced like refugees or immigrants, who of course go through their own difficult and enduring traumas, but displaced in different ways. Natasha feels adrift morally, displaced from her self and her to coordinate her own moral compass. To this day, she wakes to find herself curled in a fetal position on her mattress trying to remember which side she’s on as she rocks back and forth, images of bloodied ballet shoes dancing through her head.

And because it’s Natasha, no one knows about these episodes.

But Steve’s also the victim of an unusual displacement – his being through time. A 1940s war hero with the most unmovable moral compass in the whole universe. And that’s how their friendship blossomed, it seems. She guided him through the do’s and don’ts of the twenty-first century, caught him up on slang and world history and  _ “Wait, you don’t know what  _ DNA  _ is? Shit, you’re right, that was 1953...”  _ And Steve? Well, Steve had a way of reminding her what it means to be good. To be selfless. To stand your ground and  _ know _ you’re standing on the right side of history. When she forgets, when she gets confused – forgets what they’re fighting for, let’s the mistrust of her PTSD make her question her superiors– she looks to Steve, the Star-Spangled Man-with-a-Plan who can, in fact, be seen through the rocket’s red glare and bombs bursting in air. Steve is a steady pillar of stubborn virtue amidst the chaos. 

Without meaning to, they’ve become each other’s rocks.

But Steve Rogers is royally pissing her off (what’s new?) and Barnes is going to flip a lid if Steve keeps breathing down his neck like this, and so Nat devises a little plan of her own, which is how on a crisp September morning, Steve finds himself waving goodbye to Bucky atop Stark Tower as the quinjet touches down on the landing pad, ready to take him to sunny Los Angeles, California.

As Steve’s boarding and looking back one last time for a glimpse of Barnes, the noise of the chopper deafening, Sam leans in. “The kid you’re sending him to see really does have leukemia, right?” he asks skeptically.

“ _ Yes _ ,” Natasha whispers back through gritted teeth. “Jeez, what do you take me for? I just happened to make the phone call to the Make-A-Wish foundation and they just happened to find someone who really, really wanted to meet Captain America, and y’know, thank God it turned out I knew where Cap lived!”

“You’re evil,” Sam laughs, amazed. “So good, but so evil.”

“I’ve been told,” Natasha says, the laugh gone from her voice. Her mouth is a hard line.

She did what she needed to do. And some kid will be stoked about it. Besides, she wants to talk to Barnes without Steve hovering over her shoulder. 

 

“ _ Knock knock, _ ” she announces the next morning, not actually knocking but rather barging into Bucky and Steve’s living room. 

Bucky’s on the couch, apparently channel surfing lazily, legs widely spread. Man-spreading, they call it. He looks surprised at her entry, as if she only comes over to banter with Steve, rather than hang out with the both of them. Natasha’s a little hurt by this. Bucky’s her friend, too, dammit.

“Forget something?” he asks, genuinely.

“What? No, I’m just bored,” she retorts, stung. Though a look down at herself – the black choker that seems to say  _ don’t fuck with me _ and a white graphic tee that reads “I bite” in maroon lettering – and she realizes, in all fairness to Bucky, that she doesn’t exactly look approachable.

Bucky sighs. “Then let’s not play games here, Romanoff. What do you need?”

“Ouch,” Natasha replies. “Maybe I could just use a friend.”

“I doubt you’ll find one here,” Bucky says, jaw tightening ever so slightly as he raises his arm, the sedative cuff falling a centimeter down his wrist to prove his point. “But I’m not gonna stop you.” In all honesty, he doesn’t really look like he _ could  _ stop her. Sure, he’s been eating well, even working out and once or twice getting his hands dirty on some construction projects within the Tower, but Nat knows he still hardly sleeps and she’s seen how tense he is, checking his six like a tic. She’s clearly caught him on a rough day; she feels a little guilty, wondering if Steve’s absence has anything to do with it. 

Natasha sits on the couch beside him, her back against the arm and her legs crossed in front of her as she sits facing a still man-spreading Bucky. She eyes his crotch with a look of annoyance, and he only spreads his legs further, challenging her with one eyebrow arched.

All in all, they’re an even match. 

“So what is it you do for fun these days, Barnes?” 

He laughs out loud at that. With the sedative cuff, his doctor’s orders are  loud and clear: stay put and try not to kill anyone. That’s why the only people he can even be around are some of the most indestructible people on Earth. What does he do for  _ fun _ , she asks. Ha.

“Right, you live with Grandpa Rogers. Probably not too much going on in here, huh?”

“Steve’s not the problem,” Bucky says defensively.

“Are you kidding me?” She asks. “The dude woke up in the twenty-first century and you know what the first thing he did was?” 

“Didn’t he, like, help you guys save the world from an alien invasion?”

Natasha scoffs. “Sure, but you know what he was doing at night? Going to community college history classes to brush up. I shit you not.”

Bucky’s eyes widen, look the tiniest bit brighter. She can imagine what he’s thinking.  _ Of course Steve caught up on history by going back to school _ .  _ Of course. Always was a big nerd.  _ He goes quiet for a moment, looking like he’s lost in the past.

“James?” Natasha says after a while, gently reeling him back in. Sometimes, he goes far away when he remembers things.

“Thanks,” he mumbles.

“What for?”

“You reminded me of something from Before – somethin’ stupid. We – er, Steve and I, we used to pass notes in high school before I dropped out. My memories are kinda...how do I put it? Locked. They’re there, in my brain, stored away like they shoulda been, only problem is I’ve lost the key. But, uh, sometimes if something triggers it, the brain cells stitch back together and ta-da, a memory.”

“I know the feeling,” Natasha says, looking him straight in the eye, calculating.

“I know  _ you _ ,” Bucky replies suddenly, squinting at her now. He doesn’t just mean from the day she let him and Steve escape in the Helicarrier.

“We’ve met,” Natasha says flatly. “It was a dark time. You weren’t in control of your body and neither was I.”

“The...Red Room...” Bucky pieces together slowly, looking at her with new eyes. “I was...I only came out of the ice a few times in those years – they had me under for more experiments and cryo was not perfected by then–” Natasha, understandably, winces, “–but I...know you.”

“I was a captured orphan. Tragic backstory, I know.” She tries and fails to make light of it. “They put guns in my hands, too. Put memories in my brain that didn’t belong to me. I was fourteen.”

“I’m sorry,” Bucky whispers. It comes out gravelly and low. 

“Point is,” Natasha says, taking a clearing breath and blinking whatever was in her fucking eye out of her fucking eye. “You’re not alone. That’s all I wanted to say.”

“Does Steve...?” 

“Oh, I’m sure Cap doesn’t know. He’s the only one in this godforsaken tower who has enough respect for his colleagues that he doesn’t rip open their private files and get his eyeballs all over them. Honest to a T, that one.” 

“Think there’s a file on the Winter Soldier?” Bucky asks after a long moment, finally crossing his legs.

“Barnes,” Natasha shakes her head sadly. “They’ve got novels on you.”

 

Natasha can only do this heart to heart thing for so long in any given day before she’s afraid that someone will notice that her insides are a little blackened, a little charred. She’s told Bucky what she wanted to tell him, or at least most of it. Someday, she’ll build up the courage to thank him for being the only guard who brought her and the other children leftover bread on the nights he was on duty – that extra food probably saved her when she was being punished after a particularly horrible ballet, in which she’d slipped on stage. He wasn’t around long, but she remembers his face, the gentleness that somehow remained in his eyes despite the terrifying metallic arm that could crush throats, once even before her eyes. His was the only face that looked like it regretted something. And the arm, the arm with the bright red Soviet star, an ubiquitous reminder.. She remembers it so vividly. 

Someday, perhaps she’ll even build up to admitting that she also, like Barnes, suffers from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, something she self-diagnosed after overhearing Sam and Steve talk about volunteering at the VA hospital. She knows from talking to Steve that Bucky’s been knocking on his door at three am from nightmares, often crawling into bed with him so he can calm down enough to get some shuteye. She gets nightmares, too.

Shit. Now she feels sort of bad about getting rid of Steve for the weekend. Searching for some way to distract herself – the both of them, really – Natasha looks up and smiles wickedly at Barnes.

“Wanna spar?”

Bucky’s hesitant at first, which Natasha can understand. It’s not like the fucked up former assassin with PTSD is the most popular candidate with whom to practice hand-to-hand combat. He probably doesn’t get this question very often.

“C’mon,” she says. “I’m sure you could use some exercise. Steve tells me you’ve been sticking to your regimen, doing everything that’s asked of you. You’ve earned this, Barnes. Come have some fun.” He shakes his head, but he gets up.

They take the elevator down to a floor with a boxing ring.

Natasha changes quickly in the locker room; she’s wearing an all-black tracksuit with a white sports bra featuring triangular cut-outs in the back. Bucky and Nat both know that if Steve were here, he’d be averting his eyes and blushing pink; Steve’s adjusted to the twenty-first century amazingly overall, but girls showing their skin – no matter how many feminist articles he’s read – make him embarrassed as hell. 

Bucky, of course, doesn’t give a damn. From what she’s heard – and knowing Steve Rogers, she’s heard an earful – Bucky’s often run with a racier crowd, edgier and a whole lot less straight-laced than his best friend, a golden boy if ever was one. No, Bucky Barnes is all about lit cigarettes and scraped knees. In some ways, he’s more fit for this century than Steve ever will be. Apart from the brain-turned-to-mush-by-Nazis thing, which has a way of throwing a wrench in things. 

Regardless, Natasha is in her corner, and Bucky – in a gray T-shirt and basketball shorts, barefoot with his sedative cuff sleek and black in the fluorescent lighting – is in the other, hair tied back in a small ponytail at the nape of his neck.

“No weapons?” she asks, adjusting her weight into a ready-position and lifting her arms a few inches.

“No weapons,” Bucky assures.

She raises an eyebrow.

He pulls two paring knives (he really needs to stop compulsively snatching those) out of his shorts’ pocket and tosses them over the rope. They clank metallically on the concrete floors. 

She raises her eyebrow higher.

“That’s it, I swear,” Bucky almost-smiles, and raises his arm as if to prove it.

Natasha takes the motion, which leaves Bucky’s entire torso open and vulnerable, as an invitation, striking near his armpit with her left hook. His eyes narrow,  _ noted _ , and suddenly he’s in it, looking steadier as he focuses on his target. Nat grins – hand-to-hand is fun, and probably the most important training they do in the Tower despite the technology they have on hand; if the last few years have taught the Avengers anything, it’s to not rely on anything but themselves.

Nat’s hair whips around as she contorts through the air like a snake, coming at Barnes from angles that are hard to anticipate. Bucky’s stockier, rotating on his feet to keep Natasha at his twelve as best he can, body moving gracefully even with the one arm. Nat wedges her foot behind his right knee and he pitches forward, strands of long dark hair falling out of his ponytail and into his face. She’s at his back, arms locking his behind him, but with surprising velocity, Bucky flips forward from his knees, rolling into a somersault that catches Natasha’s torso between his legs on the mat, putting him on top. His face is contorted with concentration and sweat, and he looks down at Natasha, his only hand splayed palm-down on the mat near her neck, and she feels –

Terrified. Genuinely terrified. 

Bucky frowns, eyes scanning Natasha, and just as he’s about to say something and pull his arm back–

“стоп,” she whispers apologetically, eyes still wide, her legs shaking.  _ Stop. _

“ _ No– _ ” Bucky starts, but it’s too late. The sedative cuff has already tightened on his wrist, the needles puncturing his skin, and he writhes for a half-second above her.

She sees him slide into the all-encompassing black, and his weight collapses onto her heaving chest. She lays there for three minutes in shock, heart beating like a hummingbird and a tension freezing all of her muscles as she shivers under his weight, mortified at what she has done.

 

The medical team retrieves Bucky from where he’s slumped face down on the mat, his mouth slightly agape, his sweat leaving marks on the floor. Natasha sits nearby, trying and failing to hide how upset she is. She must look made of marble, petrified on the mat beside Barnes. Someone puts a shock blanket around her, which feels stupid and pisses her off, but she doesn’t remove it. Clint gets paged that she’s downstairs; he fetches her and brings her up to his apartment, planting her on the couch and trying to get some tea into her. 

“You were scared,” he soothes, rubbing her feet while she drinks chamomile tea and cries on his sofa. “You were scared, ‘Tasha, that’s not a crime.”

“What have I done?” she whispers back.

 

* * *

 

Steve Rogers is in a different hospital room on the other side of the country, at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, in a fitted, unarmored lightweight version of his Captain America uniform – the one he wears for banquets, galas, and presidential dinners (although unsurprisingly, the new president has not requested a visit from Captain America).

It frustrates him that all hospitals look the same. The sad beds. The windows. The bulletin boards with artwork that can break a man’s heart. The sterility, the stethoscopes, the coffee sloshing in cardboard cups. The stuffed animals. McDonalds are all supposed to look the same. Hospital rooms for children are not.

But  _ c’est la vie.  _ He has bigger fish to fry at the moment than squabbling over the interior design of in-patient rooms. He’s spending the weekend with Rosy, an adorable five-year-old with latte-colored skin and dark hair done up in corn rows – hair she’s sure to lose in the coming weeks, as her chemotherapy begins. 

The cancerous cells that have turned against her own body, however, seem to be doing little to dampen Rosy’s outlook on life. The girl has a 1000 kilowatt smile of grinning baby teeth, and Captain America is her absolute favoritest hero. Unlike many of the other children Steve’s met as Captain America over the years, Rosy is super-talkative, never hiding behind the adults in the room; Steve loves the way kids trust Captain America so quickly. She tells him about how she’s going to be the first hip-hop dancer in outer space and about her Daddy who is the best and plays superhero with her and about how she doesn’t understand why all bears are named Teddy. Captain America’s spent Friday night and most of Saturday with her, coloring at too-small tables that don’t fit his knees and exchanging stories and reading children’s books. He meets her Dad – a single father, Steve feels for him – and her grandparents and her older brothers in high school who try to play it cool that they’re  _ hanging out with Captain America.  _ They all go out for a very nice meal; Steve’s saved the Make-A-Wish foundation’s funds and financed the entire trip himself. It’s all going really well.

Just after ice cream in the hospital cafeteria, Steve’s walking next to Rosy with one hand in his pocket and her tiny fingers in his other, when his phone starts to vibrate. He excuses himself to the bathroom – it’s Natasha.

“Hello?” he says quietly into the phone, suddenly concerned. “Everything alright, Nat?”

There’s just breathing on the other end for what feels like ages.

“Natasha?”

“Steve, I–I did a thing,” she says, sounding ashamed. She starts cursing under her breath, cursing a lot. It sounds like it’s in Russian, and then she’s rambling, her words running together, and  _ is she crying? _

“Nat, Natasha. Deep breath, deeeeep breath. What’s going on?” He’s never heard her like this.

“I fucked up,” she shrieks, her tearfulness turning quickly to red-hot anger. “I fucked up, okay?”

“What is it? Are you okay? Is everyone safe?” Steve’s desperate now, heart beating its way out of his chest.

“You should come home.”

 

And he does. Steve spends a grueling final hour with Rosy and her family, torn between doing something kind for this beautiful, strong child who’s sick, and whatever chaos is going on at home that Nat only half-managed to explain. What he knows is that Bucky needs him.  _ Now.  _ His leg bounces the entire time. By nine o’clock, he’s on an Eastbound flight, headphones in so he can continue listening to history books on tape, distract himself somehow. 

An hour in, the audio book starts covering the Cold War. Steve is suddenly bitterly disappointed the twenty-first century doesn’t have teleportation yet. 

It’s a long five hours.

 

Natasha’s waiting for him in her pajamas, wrapped in a blanket, at the bottom of the staircase that leads to the helicopter landing pad at the top of the Tower. She isn’t wearing a stitch of makeup and looks like a dog who knows its owner is about to discover a trashcan with its contents tipped over. Christ, she can’t even  _ look  _ at Steve.

Steve’s frowning, concerned, as he works his way down the steps, a red, white, and blue duffel draped over one shoulder.

He wants to ask her a million questions, wants to get to Buck as soon as possible, but the look on Natasha’s face stops him in his tracks.

He has more than one friend. Sometimes, he needs to remember that.

The duffel falls to the ground with a thump and before she can begin on an insistent stream of apologies and explanations, Steve is wrapping his arms around her and holding her tight, steady. Her body shivers at the touch, tenses and then relaxes.

“I did something bad,” she whispers into his neck, eyes closed. He could swear he can feel his shoulder getting damp. 

“Hey,” he says, pulling out of the hug and putting a hand under her chin – asking her to look at him. “I’m sure whatever it is, you did your best.”

She takes a steadying breath and looks Steve square in the eye.

“I triggered his cuff.”

Steve blinks, completely caught by surprise, and anger that he wasn’t expecting floods his body. He wants to spit, “You did  _ what _ ?” and for a second there he even has to resist the urge to grab her and shake her. But he’s Steve, and she’s  _ Nat  _ for Christ’s sake, and he does none of those things. Instead, he does something appreciably worse: he gazes at her with deep-seated disappointment.

Natasha’s mouth forms a silent, “I’m sorry,” but Steve’s already gone, leaving her standing there looking stricken, taking the rest of the stairs two, even three at a time – and not bothering with elevator – too slow.

“F.R.I.D.A.Y.?” he pants, practically flying down the stairwell. “Where’s Buck?”

“Sir, you’ll find him on the twenty-third, in the medical unit, Room 10 with Dr. Johnson and the like.”

 

Steve is there when Bucky wakes up about ninety minutes later. It takes him a good half hour to transition from fully tranquilized to fully awake, and there’s a confused, just-got-your-wisdom-teeth-out phase, in which Bucky proceeds to sweet talk Steve like one of the dames he’d hit on in ’42.

“Stevie,  _ baby _ ,” he groans from the hospital bed, eyes still mostly closed. “Where are you?” He’s used to the familiar warm mass next to him when he wakes up. Steve turns red as a chili pepper, and Dr. Johnson raises her eyebrows at him, a small, unprofessional smirk on her lips.

Then Bucky starts tossing and turning, thrashing as he’s waking all the way up, visions and memories swimming in his drug-addled brain. Tranquilizers and PTSD apparently don’t mix.

“Steve, Steve, they’re gonna do it, they’re gonna drill through my foot, Steve, _Steve_ stop them it’s not fair, _it’s not fair! Jesus Christ_ _I did what you asked, please, Rumlow_ , _no, NO!–”_

Steve plants his hands on Bucky’s shoulders just as Dr. Johnson taught him, pinning him down gently so he doesn’t hurt himself with the thrashing. Apparently the weight is supposed to be soothing, but Steve can’t imagine how having a super soldier pin you down during a full-fledged panic attack can be anywhere near soothing. But it works; Bucky’s just mumbling now, begging for something that happened to him years ago to stop. It makes Steve’s stomach churn in the most unpleasant of ways.

“Buck, Bucky, hey. It’s me, Steve. You’re safe, no one is hurting you, pal. I won’t let them. You’re here with me now, y’hear, Buck?” Steve’s eyes are so focused on Bucky, he doesn’t notice Dr. Johnson looking away politely. 

Bucky’s blinking now, his eyes less glazed over and more present. He shakes his head the slightest bit.

“Your birthday is March 10, 1917. You were born in Indiana, moved with your folks to Brooklyn, just a block from me. You used to rescue me from all sortsa trouble. Well,  _ you _ thought it was rescuin’, but I’m tellin’ ya, Buck, I had him–”

“–on the ropes,” Bucky finishes, his pupils less dilated as he looks into Steve’s eyes. “That’s what you said, ain’t it? You had him on the ropes?”

Steve could kiss him.

But he doesn’t. Instead, he looks to Dr. Johnson, who’s making her way over to the two of them, arms folded and concern in her eyes.

“James,” she greets with a nod in his direction. 

“Doc,” he replies, half-smiling. He likes Dr. Johnson. She’s kind to him.

“How’re we feeling today?” she says, stroking his forehead with her long fingers. Dr. Johnson and Steve are the only people allowed to touch; it’s a hard line. He closes his eyes.

“Not so hot. I don’t...I don’t totally remember what happened. Why am I here?”

Steve answers. “You were sparring, with Natasha. She  _ thought _ she saw you lose yourself, in the match – a glint of the Winter Soldier in your eyes. She spoke in Russian to trigger the cuff,” Steve’s Adam's apple bobs. It doesn’t escape Bucky’s notice that he looks  _ pissed _ . 

“Oh.” Well, the day had finally come. He’d tried to take someone’s life in the Tower, had lost the ever-present battle between Bucky and the Soldier in his mind. He should have known he wasn’t ready to spar – he should have been smarter – he should have stayed safely in cryogenic sleep where no one was in danger...

But something about it doesn’t feel right. He doesn’t remember the Soldier spreading angry tendrils through his synapses today. He thought he’d been doing okay; he was even having fun.

“I...but I...I wasn’t going to kill her. Was I?” he asks, small under the bleached-white hospital sheets. It frightens him to the core that he doesn’t know, or remember.  _ Was  _ he trying to kill her?

Steve takes the question like a blow, closing his eyes and wiping his face..

“No, Buck. No, you weren’t going to kill her. You’re right. She misread your body language.”

At this, Bucky does a full-body scan, shifting and feeling for injuries. His body is stiff, but he’s uninjured thanks to the fact that he collapsed _onto_ Black Widow’s body, and soon he’s worked himself up into a sitting position on the side of the bed, his legs dangling off the side and shoulders hunched. His hand rests lamely in his lap. 

“So...did _he_ take over?” Bucky asks quietly, referring to the Winter Soldier. Steve is relieved to hear that today, ‘he’ is the Soldier, not Barnes. 

“The doctors watched the footage of the fight, Buck. Stark has almost every room in the Tower bugged except bathrooms and bedrooms – even then I’m not sure I take his word that they aren’t – but if you look at the video...you didn’t lose it. You were yourself the whole time –you were doing great. Nat overreacted.”

Bucky looks down, like he’s just smelled something rotten. “She didn’t overreact.”

“The hell she didn’t.”

“Don’t be proud, Steve. I’m a scary, unbalanced perso– thing. I have a brain that doubles back on itself, forgets stupid things like the day of the week and important things like who’s on my side. Ya can’t get mad at her for trying to save her own neck.”

Steve’s tense, obviously disagreeing. “There was nothing to save herself  _ from _ . People’ve gotta stop lookin’ at you like a damn pit bull terrier, I swear to–”

Bucky glowers.  _ “I am a pit bull,” _ Bucky near shouts. “That’s it exactly, Rogers I’m a dog bred to kill. You can train ‘em all you want, sleep next to ‘em in bed every day for ten years, but you’ve gotta know that no matter how hard you try, they got the kill gene in ‘em. A gene that can be triggered at any time, without warning.” 

“James, I’m impressed with your ability to articulate how you’re feeling right now,” Dr. Johnson interjects, cutting across Steve’s next stubborn response. “Steve, I think it best that you let James rest. I’ll release him from the ward soon enough. Go and have a drink, why don’t you?”

“Right,” Steve says, more frustrated than usual that he  _ can’t  _ have a drink – or at least feel one. He looks at Bucky one last time, worried though he knows he needn’t be, and turns to leave.

 

* * *

 

Bucky falls back to sleep, exhausted, but he wakes, intermittently, waiting for the tranquilizers to work their way out of his system.

“I wasn’t gonna kill anybody,” he says at one point, awake but sounding like a five-year-old as he sits up in bed with wide eyes and messy hair.

“I know,” Steve replies, rising from his armchair, a cup of half-drunk coffee in hand. Wait, Steve? “I know, Buck.”

The fact that Steve’s come back to Bucky’s room, even when his own apartment is only a few floors above, warms Bucky inside..

Natasha avoids him altogether. He guesses she’s still all fucked up and thinks Bucky will never forgive her for tranquilizing him. She’s wrong.

As promised, the doctors release him around five o’clock. They tell him again and again that it’s not his fault, that Romanoff was mistaken, that he was doing very well, but it doesn’t really matter to Bucky, who’s afraid that everyone in the building will think the Winter Soldier finally snapped.

By the end of the day, everyone from the Avengers to the kitchen staff knows what happened. When Bucky’s discharged, they run into Wanda, who gives a shy wave of a fingerless-gloved hand. Throughout the week, various people Bucky’s hardly shared two words with knock on Steve’s door, just to say hi or check in or deliver a message – people who previously wouldn’t have touched the Winter Soldier with a ten-foot pole. Maria comes by to give Steve an update on the Sokovia Accords that she could have easily emailed, but didn’t. Clint comes by to drop off a few books he’s done reading.

In a way, then, it’s actually the best thing that happens to Bucky, at least in terms of his existence in the Tower. A realization of _ he didn’t try to kill her  _ spreads _.  _ They’ve all watched the footage now – Tony frowning through it unimpressed, as if he  _ wanted _ Bucky to make an attempt on Nat’s life – and seen how Bucky was capable of holding back from in fight, how even as they sparred, he managed to be gentle, cautious. How he didn’t even put his weight on Natasha when he pinned her down. How mid-spar, he giggled, visibly enjoying himself in a way that only to the small bunch of enhanced superhumans who inhabit the Tower would understand. For most of them, it’s the most human they’ve ever seen Bucky Barnes. Really, it’s the first time they’ve  _ seen  _ Bucky Barnes at all, outside of combat or when he’s been wordlessly hunched in the corner of Steve’s apartment. The doctors and the Avengers start to reopen the idea of letting Bucky out of the Tower. There’s talk of supervised leaves, even of getting him a new prosthetic. Somehow, mid-disaster, the tables have started to turn.

Not so much for Natasha, who not only feels incredibly guilty but is also getting unkind looks from some of the others. Bucky doesn’t want to Steve to punish her, but it’s pretty obvious from Steve’s curt answers that he’s not happy with her. 

“Look, Steve,” Bucky says one day shortly after the incident. “Put yourself in her shoes. Nat panicked, and there’s stuff in her past she’s never told you about. Girl’s had it rough, okay?”

Steve’s mouth sets. “I know she’s been through the ringer, Buck. But when I thought you were gonna put a bullet in me, I called truce. I didn’t tranquilize the heck out of ya.”

“Might’ve, if you’d been able to,” Bucky points out. Steve just shakes his head. “Think it over, pal.”

 

The week passes. Bucky recovers quickly from the episode – he can see Steve wasn’t expecting him to bounce back this fact, but Steve should have more faith in him. 

Natasha hasn’t come over once – Bucky’s beginning to feel sort of bad about that, and he thinks Steve does, too, but neither of them has said anything.

Bucky’d used the incident as leverage. While everyone was still sorry for the guy who just got the shit tranquilized out of him by one of his two remaining friends, he’d begged the doctors to start letting him out of the Tower. Being cooped up all day with people is making him go stir crazy. He wants to go for a fucking  _ walk. _ His wish is more or less granted, but he’s only allowed out for short periods. Supervised. But it’s something.

While Bucky was sleeping off the tranqs, the doctors upgraded the cuff, ‘graduating’ him to a new one that delivers light shocks rather than sedates him, the idea being that the small shock can pull him from a Winter Soldier reverie. They think it’s an improvement, but Bucky’s terrified of the thing. It wasn’t that long ago that Hydra was feeding him a mouth guard and testing what voltage his body could withstand. No, he’s not keen on the technology one bit.

But if he’s going into the city, he can’t be compromised into a drooling idiot with one word of Russian. The shocks, supposedly, will leave him on his feet – so long as the PTSD doesn’t knock him flat, he thinks bitterly. His doctors do seem to be trying to grant him more freedoms, but he sees through their bullshit. The people around him only fake-trust him, like a dog you pet in the yard only because you know it’s chained to the mailbox behind it. Before, he might have appreciated their wariness, but even he can see that he’s doing better. He didn’t try to kill Natasha. A low bar, sure, but one he’s surpassed nonetheless.

* * *

 

Tonight, they’re in the living room, boxes of empty Chinese takeout on the coffee table (one of Bucky’s favorite twenty-first century luxuries) and Bucky is reading one of Steve’s collected  _ LIFE _ magazines from the ‘60s while Steve sketches something in the warm, low light. 

Steve’s starting to get used to evenings like this. Food, usually takeout or something microwaved, occasionally potatoes or spaghetti. Sometimes guests, usually one at a time for Bucky’s sake – too many people make him anxious. But even that’s getting better, so long as he’s got Steve watching his six. They settle into their respective butt-shaped imprints on the couches, Steve near the tall lamp with his pencils all laid out and Bucky snuggled into a corner, the evergreen throw blanket tangled around his feet, the enormous magazine in his lap, flipping one-handedly and alternating between that and the tea he’s nursing. As they settle into yet another night in, grandpas indeed, Bucky uncharacteristically breaks the silence.

“I got somethin’ today,” he says, casually, eyes still focused on the page, his hair long around his face. He’d kept it that way, said he didn’t want to forget who he was.

“Oh?” Steve responds, only half-focused as he works on getting the curve of Bucky’s upper lip just right on the page.

“Shelly gave it to me. Picked it up this morning, when you went runnin’ with Wilson.”

“Shelly as in..?”

“Dr. Johnson.”

“Ah, so, er, what’d she give you?” Steve asks, flipping the pencil over to the eraser side, trying desperately to be nonchalant despite the fact that every time Bucky volunteers something of his own volition it feels like a miracle.

“Prescription. Something they want me to try,” Bucky says. “Think it’ll maybe help with my memories, for uh, y’know, intel. And they think it’ll calm me down, some. Good for sleep, that sorta thing.”

“Melatonin?” Steve asks. It’s a habit of his now, to keep what some might call a small pharmacy in his medicine cabinet. Old habits die hard – once a sick kid in the Depression, always a sick kid in the Depression. No amount of serum can bleed  _ that  _ out of him. Melatonin seems the likely prescription.

“Er, not exactly,” says Bucky, starting to blush. Steve waits, patient, continuing his sketch. He knows Buck’ll talk when he’s ready.

“It’s cannabis,” he finally reveals, swallowing. “They got me smokin’ pot, Stevie.” He grins deviously into his cup of tea, amused to no end that the solution to the Winter Soldier is marijuana.

Steve looks up, genuinely surprised, to catch Bucky’s eye. Bucky’s smoked cigarettes for as long as he can remember, but marijuana? Steve’s well-informed enough to know that the legalize movement’s been active the last few years, but he’d written it off, what with alien invasions and his own lack of interest, thanks to the serum-induced metabolism that’s always kept him from being under the influence of anything other than Asgardian ale not included. He wonders how pot would mix with the serum.

Surprising himself, Steve laughs out loud. “Never thought I’d see the day when James Buchanan Barnes smoked a doobie.”

“It don’t bother you? Captain America endorsin’ marijuana?” Bucky almost seems shy, embarrassed. Like he thought Steve would be disappointed in him or something.

“I don’t know. If it helps, it helps, Buck. That’s what matters.”

“Yeah, you ain’t fooling me, you goody two-shoes.” Bucky gets a wicked expression. “So, you gonna smoke with me or what, Stevie?”

“Bucky, Captain  _ America  _ doesn’t smoke dope!”

“Sure he does.” A grin begins to creep back onto Bucky’s face. “Or, well, maybe  _ he  _ don’t, but Steve Rogers might?”

Steve makes a face. “It’s against the law. And I don’t have a medical card.  _ And _ I’m pretty sure I can’t get high anyway...” He grimaces again. Steve doesn’t much like talking about his enhanced body and its mysterious, inhuman workings.

Bucky almost whines. “ _ C’mon _ . Let your hair down, Rogers!” Steve knows Bucky can see his resolve faltering, and he leaps at it. “ What’s it gonna do? Kill ya?”

 

In the end, Steve lets Bucky corrupt America’s sweetheart into sharing a joint. Bucky’s still on pretty tight parole, especially at night, but they find a high balcony on one of the top floors, and they’re alone – a couple of teenagers up to no good and high on their own rule-breaking. From the open-air balcony, they can see all of Manhattan spilling out before them, lights twinkling the same way they used to from their apartment window in Brooklyn.

It’s like history is repeating itself. Steve sits cross-legged beside Bucky while Bucky rolls the paper, managing it impressively with just the one hand and licking it carefully just like he used to roll his own cigarettes during the Depression. Of course, Steve never smoked with Bucky back then – his poor lungs couldn’t take it – but he remembers fondly the smell of tobacco on Bucky’s skin, the routine of it all, sitting out on their roof under the stars in the middle of the city, the center of the universe.

Bucky’s muscle memory is still there, the joint rolled and ready to go with medical-grade marijuana.  _ The good stuff _ , Bucky had called it.  A lighter materializes from Bucky’s pocket, and he looks at Steve, his eyes asking,  _ ready? _

Steve nods, and Bucky lights up, the joint dangling between his fingers like they were made just to hold it there in the balance, the smoke escaping his parted lips in warm tendrils.

He passes the it to Steve, who looks at it nervously, looks at  _ Bucky  _ nervously, and then inhales.

After a moment of sputtering, the too-hot smoke burning his throat as it scorches down, Steve finishes coughing, his eyes watering and face contorted. Bucky’s laughing at him.

“Oh, Stevie.”

“Can it, jerk.”

Bucky takes another long hit, the smoke moving through him like liquid; he blows it out like a cool breeze.

“How’d you get so good at that?” Steve asks.

“Years of practice.” A wink.

They relax into the night, puffing and passing until they reach the butt of the joint and Bucky puts it out on the wall, a nice  _ Fuck you  _ to Tony. Without thinking too hard about it, Bucky puts his hand, which was holding the joint a second ago, on Steve’s, which is resting palm-down on the concrete floor beside his crossed legs. Steve doesn’t think much of it either, as the weed starts to settle into his brain. He didn’t think he’d feel anything but...

Oh, right. Cannabis skips the GI tract and gets on a northbound train from the bloodstream straight to the brain. Whoops. Steve Rogers is  _ high. _

The night is beautiful. It’s an eerily calm evening for New York City, and the occasional car horns and screeching tires blur into the starry sky as the two of them sit, hidden in the shadows of the Big Apple that so many have disappeared into. They’re alone, feeling both twenty-something and ninety-something in bodies that they’re only starting to get used to.

The drug is strong – the medical stuff is good, and the joint was thick, and the lights of the city have become infinitely more interesting and the weight of Bucky’s hand on Steve’s is palpable. He can’t stop smiling because Bucky is  _ here,  _ in the terrifying world that is  _ 2017 _ , and Steve Rogers is not alone, not anymore.

“What’re you smilin’ about, punk?” Bucky asks after what feels like a year but surely can’t be, side-eyeing Steve with a matching smile on his own mug.

“How unlikely it all is. Borrowed time. Luck,” Steve says dreamily. 

“We didn’t borrow it, Steve. The universe gave it to us.” Steve hums a vague agreement, his head tilted back against the hard gray concrete of the Tower, taking in the few stars he can make out through the city’s glow. Light pollution. What a strange concept.

“What’d’ya miss most? About back then and all?” Steve ventures as time spills by.

“It was just easier, I think,” Bucky says. “Didn’t have to know so much. I worked with my muscles. I came home to you, all 95 lb of you, but every day you weren’t sick was a blessing. I Helped Becca with her times tables. Brought home a baguette when the pay was good to make my mama smile and swat me with a newspaper for spendin’ good money on her. Got drafted, went to war, ‘cause that’s what you did. We didn’t question so much, back then. Here they got me questionin’ everything.”

Steve feels Bucky, lost in thought, run his thumb across the back of Steve’s knuckles. It makes Steve shiver all over.

“I know what you mean,” Steve replies, his voice coming out slow and sounding more like  _ Brooklyn Steve _ , back-alley fist-fighting Steve than he has since he found who-the-hell-is-Bucky in the middle of the freeway.

“I know you do, buddy. I know you do.”

Being high isn’t like what Steve expected. There are no hallucinations, no colorful mirages. He doesn’t get the paranoia, nor the nausea. He’s not overly giggly.

He just...is. For the first time since he knew Bucky was alive, he’s not panicked about losing him again. Bucky’s right here beside him, and as he settles comfortably into a pleasant high that tilts the world ever-so-slightly, he realizes that Bucky’s not gonna leave him.

Bucky appears to be having a similar experience, his eyes on the sky and his thumb continuing to massage Steve’s hand absentmindedly; he probably doesn’t even realize he’s doing it. Bucky’s eyes are bloodshot, pupils blown, and Steve can’t help but think that his probably look the same. He chuckles quietly – one hundred years later and he and Buck are still causing trouble in the streets of New York.

And damn, does it feel good.

Minutes go by, the cool breeze refreshing on their cheeks and making Bucky’s long hair dance around his face. Bucky lifts his hand – Steve misses it already – and goes to scratch something in the place where his metal arm used to be. He frowns and sets the hand back in his lap, eyes returning to the sky but tighter now. 

“Doc’s not so worried about me killing people anymore,” Bucky throws out there.

“You miss the arm,” Steve observes, unrelated.

Bucky closes his eyes for a good while, absentmindedly fingering the empty flap of his sweatshirt.

“Is it evil of me to want it back?” he murmurs, eyes glazed, the corners of his mouth turned down.

“No, no, Buck. It ain’t evil,” Steve reassures him, looking at Bucky sincerely. He reaches his hand across and into Bucky’s lap, intertwining Bucky’s limp, unresponsive fingers with his own.

“It’s a weapon. Designed to kill. Like me. ‘Course it’s evil.”

“You were designed in God’s image. You hear me?”

“You really believe that bullshit?” Bucky says skeptically, finally looking Steve in the eye.

“I gotta believe in somethin’, Buck. After all that’s happened, I just can’t say I believe in coincidences anymore. ‘Sides, it makes sense. How else could I get this good-lookin’?” Steve grins, pupils dilated and feeling the lightest he’s been since he secretly downed too much of his mother’s whiskey when he was 14. He flexes his biceps for effect.

Bucky elbows him in the chest.

“Punk.” Buck’s grinning as well, now. Really, truly grinning, his white teeth radiant despite the shadows falling over his face. 

“We should get you an arm, Buck. Tony’s got all the world’s technological advances upstairs. I don’t see what’s holding you back from getting a new prosthetic, a good one.”

“No.”

“Why not?” Steve cocks his head like a dog, curious and uninhibited.

“I want my old arm back. The Soviet one. I’m not tryin’ to re-brand myself, Steve. That arm...it’s...a part of who I am, now. I don’t – I don’t want to  _ forget _ them, the people I hurt, Stevie. It’s not fair. The arm’s a badge of sorts, a reminder.”

Taken aback, Steve runs his free hand through his hair, making it stick up in all directions. The other hand rests comfortably in Bucky’s lap – Bucky, who is holding his hand in return. Steve looks at their hands in amazement, thinking about hands and arms and parts and wholes.

“That’s real noble of you, Buck.”

“Right, that’s me, no-bil-i-ty,” Bucky jokes into the night, enunciating each syllable. The moon has just appeared from behind cloud cover, spilling light into their private corner of the city.

“You gotta be who you gotta be,” Steve whispers finally, breath ghosting over Bucky’s neck. They’re so close, thighs nearly touching. “I’ll never stop puttin’ up with you, Buck. I don’t care if you’ve got  _ three  _ arms. I’m with you ‘til the end of the line.”

Bucky squeezes Steve’s hand, and all is right in this tiny corner of the world.

 

* * *

When they return, their high wearing off but their faces still smiling, Natasha’s is in their living room.

They sober up immediately, the laughter fading.

“Natasha,” Steve says.

“Steve. Barnes.” Her voice is raspy, her eyes steady and purposeful. Bucky is silent.

“Need to borrow some sugar?” Steve says, arms folded now. “Laundry detergent?” 

“I wanted a word,” she says, breaking eye contact. “I’m here to apologize.”

 

Steve takes the opportunity to lecture. He goes on and on, about trust, about what it means to be a part of a team, of  _ this  _ team. It dawns on Bucky, then, that this whole overblown mess has nothing to do with Natasha, not really. It’s Steve being terrified that Bucky’s going to abandon him again – that anyone who upsets Bucky might be the last straw that makes him leave. It’s Steve knowing that he can’t keep living what feels like a lie if there’s no one around to verify that what he remembers is real, that it did happen, that there was a time when he couldn’t reach the top shelf and almost died in their drafty apartment. It’s fear of losing Bucky, his Bucky, plain and simple.

“Steve,” Bucky finally whispers, at least an hour into the debacle of Nat trying to explain herself and Steve not having it. “Forgive her already. She’s our friend.” He heaves a sigh, runs a hand through his hair.

Natasha and Steve crane their heads at him with wide, disbelieving eyes, each mid-argument with the next insult or accusation on the tip of their tongues.

“He’s right, you know,” Steve finally says, looking ashamed as his shoulders dip and his back hunches into terrible posture. He runs his hands over his face. “I need a shower.”

While Steve showers, Natasha moves to sit beside Bucky, their thighs touching as she runs her fingers through his hair, combing it. He doesn’t like people touching him, but this is Natasha, and he’s too wiped to be bothered.

“Thank you, Bucky,” she says with his hair parting beneath her hands. “I’m so, so, so sorry. I want to say that you know I trust you, but obviously I don’t– at least, some subconscious part of me didn’t, and I don’t–”

“Shhh,” Bucky says. “You don’t have to trust me. I never did anything to earn your trust. I’m a serial killer.” He smiles at her now, turning. “You really know how to pick ‘em.” At that, Bucky winks.

She punches his arm and smirks at him – and he rests his head on her shoulder, slumped on the couch.

“He’ll come around,” Bucky says, listening to the sound of the water running. 

“I really hope so,” Natasha whispers back, resting her head on his.

 

* * *

Steve finds them like that, asleep, twenty minutes later. And he has to admit, the sight of it softens him. 

 

**PART IV**

**Warrior II**

 

Due to Bucky’s request and the altered cuff, which now shocks rather than tranquilizes, he gets to leave the Tower more. Dr. Johnson seems to think the new cuff’s more humane, the shocks being relatively low-grade and harmless, but it’s a horrifying ‘improvement,’ if you ask Bucky, who still has nightmares about Hydra electrocuting him. Who still feels the burns of their rods at his sides. The shock is designed to merely divert his attention, but a heavy anxiety builds in his chest over it regardless.

Usually, he goes outside with Natasha and Steve, who are on better terms now, and who’ve both had to undergo training with Bucky’s psychiatrists to understand the necessary actions they may have to take to subdue him if he goes Winter Soldier on them. Natasha’s even had to sign paperwork agreeing to shoot on sight should the risk to civilians reach a certain threshold, thanks to her damn Hancock on the Sokovia Accords. Steve’s only a little smug as she grits her teeth and rolls her eyes when the doctors present the pen and paper.

They both know Steve will die protecting Bucky. And they both know Natasha will only do what’s right in her own eyes. She’s fed up with taking orders. Trust is a transient thing.

One day, while Steve’s meeting with Clint, Stark, Wanda and Maria to debrief a mission to stakeout a potential Hydra base in Gabon, Bucky wanders alone through the Tower, bored and feeling a little more adventurous. He’s done his yoga sun salutations and the coffee was particularly strong this morning.

He finds himself puttering around a lab of some sort. There’s equipment everywhere, pliers and red-and-blue wires and circuit boards, all the wheels and gadgets he was used to seeing back when Hydra kept him, particularly during the Space Race when they worked on new iterations of his arm practically every week. He’s quiet, the feeling that he’s not really supposed to be there growing in the pit of his stomach, making him shoot frequent glances at the door. He feels like when he was a kid, sneaking downstairs with Becca to look at their Christmas presents the night before, afraid to be swatted by Ma and her newspaper. Funny, which memories come back to him.

Just as he’s picking up something round and shiny that he doesn’t have a name for, a footstep makes him jump out of his skin.

“SHIT!” he yelps as a silhouette on the other side of the room screeches, “Holy  _ fuck _ , man!”

As their heart rates settle and the other man’s eyes adjust to the darkness, Bucky takes a brief second to pat himself on the back; he didn’t even pull the bread knife out of his sock this time. Hell yeah.

The silhouette soon reveals himself to be Dr. Bruce Banner. The green guy. Right.

“Man, you  _ scared  _ me. What are you doing up here?” he asks, but his eyes are kind behind his glasses and his voice is far from accusatory. Bucky takes him in – the salt-and-pepper hair, the hints of frown-lines around his mouth, the calloused hands, the out-of-place Hawaiian T-shirt. 

“I’m...I don’t...Sorry, I was just exploring,” Bucky tries, running his hand through his stubble. He makes a sound in the back of his throat, indicating that he can disappear, no worries.

“You’re alright, kid. Don’t sweat it. You’re Barnes, right? Steve’s friend?”

Bucky scoffs internally at _kid._ _I’m like, fifty years your senior, pal_ , he thinks. But he says, “The one and only,” surprising himself with how easily the jovial banter rolls off his tongue. “You must be Dr. Banner.”

“Ha, that’s polite of you. Most people start with Hulk.”

“Nice to meet ya, Doc,” Bucky says, stretching out his arm to shake Banner’s.

“Likewise,  _ Sarge _ . So, you know your way around your tools?” Bruce says, stepping back so the totality of the lab is visible behind him. It’s intimidating. 

“I know some. Used to be a mechanic when I was a teenager, before the shop closed up with the Depression and all and I had to move onto the docks. Plus, the, uh, arm required maintenance.”

“Self-taught,” Bruce replies, impressed. Bucky likes him already; he leaves all the painful details behind. He wants to talk shop, and Bucky couldn’t be more grateful.

Bucky gives him a crooked smile in return.

“Let me show you around.”

Bucky follows Bruce around the shop, which goes back further and further than he expected; the place is  _ huge  _ and this is only one of three labs in the Tower, not to mention the repair shop for the Avengers’ weapons and fitted suits, and the  _ separate  _ shop for vehicle parts and the helicarriers. Damn. Bucky can’t even pretend to not be impressed.

Dr. Banner knows his shit. He shows Bucky around familiar and unfamiliar tools and some of the projects he’s been working on. Stuff with A.I. that goes way over Bucky’s head, but simpler stuff, too. Bucky touches everything, his hand grazing over the gizmos excitedly, eyes wide and a billion questions rolling off of his tongue.

“You, uh, you could help me out up here, if you’re interested,” Bruce offers at the end of the tour. 

“I...yeah. Yeah, that would be great, actually. I don’t wanna fuck anything up, though–”

“Hey, don’t worry about it. We’ll start you on some low-stakes projects, warm you up a little. Think of it as your own personal WD40.”

Bucky laughs. “Used that on the arm once. Didn’t work for three days.”

“Can’t use the cheap shit on that kind of metal! Rookie mistake,” Banner laughs, shaking his head, his nerd showing unapologetically. 

Bucky starts spending more and more time in the lab, fiddling with various machines and little robots and electronics, coming back to Steve’s apartment covered in grease and alight with updates to share over dinner. He talks and talks. Steve ogles him, as if he can’t believe how much Bucky has to share today; their dinners have hardly been so lively.

“What, you forget what a good storyteller I am, Rogers?” Bucky smirks – now Steve can’t get him to shut up.

 

* * *

Missions start cropping up more regularly – or at least, Steve starts attending more meetings, which means he’s more informed and talking about them more. Natasha disappears somewhere in Latvia for ten days, and takes all of her knives from the training rooms with her. She comes back with a bandage around her right thigh but doesn’t share much else, just tosses a retrieved flashdrive on the table during an Avengers meeting and disappears into her room to shower.

Sam, T’Challa, Stark, Rhodes, and Clint start making frequent trips to Boston, investigating a serial killer who’s been leaving the Hydra symbol at each of his kills; turns out the guy’s just a creep and doesn’t have any legitimate Hydra ties, but they bring him down, and he gets life three times over. 

Steve’s been hesitant to rejoin the fight. He doesn’t want to leave Bucky, ever, and he certainly doesn’t want to stress him out or worry him. Bucky’s been recovering so  _ well  _ and he’s afraid that the person they’ve all rebuilt will shatter if he turns his back for even five minutes. Which really isn’t fair to Bucky, who he knows deserves more credit than that, but he can’t help how he feels.

Then two families burn in a townhouse outside of D.C. in a fire that suspiciously doesn’t  _ act _ like a normal fire, and only two days prior Steve’d refused to fly to D.C. to meet with the Secretary of Defense over the very security breach that likely led to the explosion. And so he picks up the shield for the first time since Siberia. 

Sam doesn’t like it.

“You can’t fight if your whole heart’s not in it, Rogers. It makes you unpredictable and unreliable. You’re not safe this way,” he chides, trying to talk Steve out of it one night in Sam’s living room. They’d been drinking beer and playing cards with the gang (Bucky’d stayed in his room), but everyone had filtered out, and it’s just the two of them now.

“My heart’s gotta be in it, Sam. That’s that.”

“ _ Steve _ .”

“ _ Sam. _ ”

 

Steve goes out to Austin, Texas, in search of drug cartel movement. Relatively low-stakes mission, as they go.

He gets shot in the shoulder. He wasn’t paying attention, just like Sam’d warned.

“I don’t wanna say I told you so...” Sam says, standing over a very temporarily bedridden Steve Rogers in a private Austin hospital.

“Then don’t,” Steve grunts, still squirming in pain. The wound is fresh, even if it’ll heal quick.

“Barnes is worried sick, you idiot.” Sam’s coming down hard tonight. 

“Tell him he don’t gotta be. I’m  _ fine _ .”

“Man, are you ever going to see how much of a danger you are to yourself, Rogers?”

Steve coughs. There’s blood; he tries and fails to hide it from Sam, who rolls his eyes in frustration.

“Take a day _ off _ , man _.  _ We care about you too much to see you like this. Next time it’s not gonna be the shoulder.”

Sam leaves, frustrated. Steve winces, turns over onto his good shoulder, and frowns.

 

Bucky’s a combination of concerned and angry when Steve is cleared the next day to return to Manhattan. But first, he hugs him, his arm wrapping around Steve. He’s not convinced that Steve is going to be okay until he can feel his muscles move beneath his own. It feels so frighteningly familiar, waiting to see if Steve’s gonna be okay. Only this time, what he has to worry about is Steve’s own stupidity and endless courage, which are surprisingly a whole lot more dangerous, he realizes, than the pneumonia and measles they were worried about back in the day.

“You scared the  _ shit  _ out of me, jerk,” Bucky says, finally pulling away.

“Sorry, Buck. Nothin’ to worry about, here. C’mon, I’ve taken out Hitler a hundred and fifty times. I can handle one bullet hole.” A joke that doesn’t find its mark and a smile that doesn’t reach his eyes.

“Not funny, Rogers.”

“Right. Sorry. Sorry.”

Pepper brings them dinner one of the nights when Steve’s is recovering. She’s the CEO of Stark industries, could have ordered lobster from Maine and it would’ve still been fresh, and yet her hands are in oven mitts and the homemade lasagna she brings to their door is still steaming. 

With a smile, she conveys volumes: Tony Stark doesn’t speak for her. They welcome her inside.

 

Steve is on bed rest for five days, officially, though by the third day he’s already lifting weights in his living room with the coffee table pushed aside.

“You’re gonna get yourself killed,” Bucky says, only a few feet away from Steve, who jumps right out of his skin and cannot for the life of him understand how Bucky can enter a room so goddamn  _ silently.  _ Christ. It’s unnerving. 

He sets the weights down carefully, but won’t look Bucky in the eye when he responds. “If Dr. Erskine’s serum couldn’t do it, the second World War couldn’t do it, and the plane crash on ice couldn’t do it, I think I’m gonna be okay.” It’s harsh – perhaps the harshest thing Steve’s said to Bucky since they woke him from his beauty sleep, but Bucky looks pleased, seemingly glad to bring out the conviction in Steve, who’s no longer treating him like a wounded animal. 

“You really believe that, asshole? You’re not invincible, Steve.  _ I  _ almost finished you. You got yourself fuckin’  _ shot, _ man.”

“Never said it was a safe job,” Ste

“You’re gonna be on disability for life at this rate,” Bucky retorts.

“Thank God for the New Deal, then,” Steve snaps, and that conversation is over. He turns on his heel and leaves the room red in the face, slamming the door to the bathroom as he stalks out. A moment later he hears Bucky curse and throw his phone – a burner, at least – at the wall, smashing it. 

Steve comes out forty-five minutes later, clean-shaven and dragging his feet. Bucky’s sitting on the couch, clearly waiting for him, his feet resting on the coffee table that’s been pushed back to where it belongs. Steve’s weights are nowhere in sight.

“Sit,” Bucky commands.

Steve sits, unamused.

“If you keep this up, Rogers, I’m gonna follow you out there to the front lines, the hell with the cuff, and I’m gonna watch your goddamn six for you. You hear me?”

“Not fucking likely,” Steve says angrily.

“What happened to not telling your easily-triggered pal with PTSD who was a prisoner of the world’s leading neo-Nazi terrorist organization for seventy years what to do?” Bucky says, but his voice is getting quieter. “What happened to not making me follow orders, huh?”

Steve whispers, his eyes full of tears. “I...I can’t let you get hurt, Buck. I can’t do it. I  _ can’t _ –” 

Then Steve is crying, full-on sobbing for the first time in...in years. When he comes from, men don’t cry. Men don’t cry. Men don’t  _ fucking _ cry.

Bucky gets up from the love seat and moves to where Steve’s sitting on the big couch that faces the TV. Steve’s face in his hands and his chest visibly heaving, though no sound comes out.

“C’mere,” Bucky says, pulling Steve’s hands away from his face gently and wrapping Steve in a hug as they sit side by side, Steve’s face buried in Bucky’s neck, wet with tears and spittle. It’s an ugly cry.

“I’m a grown ass man, Stevie. I’m gonna look out for myself, ya hear? I’m gonna look out for myself. Neither of us are gonna make an inch of progress if we don’t put ourselves first.”

“I d–don’t know  _ how _ to put myself first,” Steve hiccups, sacrificing all pretense of masculinity. “It’s not the right thing to do. My country, and my friends, and you–”

“You can’t save anyone if you can’t save yourself, pal. Trust me. It’s not hiding from your enemies. Dr. Johnson says sometimes self-preservation is a political act.”

“I feel like a coward,” Steve mumbles into Bucky’s neck. “And this country, Buck, this country – sometimes it feels like it don’t wanna save itself.”

“Steven Grant Rogers. Look at me.” Steve raises his head a few inches, still ashamed of the tears streaking his face that even his best friend of almost one hundred years has never seen. “If you finally start taking fucking care of yourself, I swear, it’ll be the bravest thing you ever do.”

 

Life does the one thing it’s good at: it goes on. Steve’s shoulder heals, and he and Bucky don’t talk about the conversation on the couch, the tears or the endless responsibility Steve puts on himself that Bucky swears will get him killed. Rhodes and Stark continue to ignore Bucky, despite his more frequent appearances in the hallways of the Tower, walking to Natasha’s, to Banner’s lab, dropping things off, grabbing coffee in the lobby. Once, Stark even refuses to enter an elevator that Bucky’s in, heading downstairs to meet Nat for lunch. Bucky’s close-mouthed about it, but Steve can tell it stings. 

Steve thinks a part of Bucky hopes Stark never forgives him, though. Bucky’s said that Tony’s obvious distrust is a necessary reminder of the horrifying things he’s done – the things he’s afraid of forgetting as he gets used to this not-so-bad life of his, with its routine and things to look forward to and possessions. Steve thinks that in a way, Bucky clings to it – the nightmares, the forgetting, the panic attacks, the stump where an arm’s supposed to be. Bucky thinks he deserves to be haunted – like it’s just a part of who he is.

There’s a bad night on the third of July. Some teenagers have gotten a little ahead of themselves and started shooting off fireworks preemptively. Steve hadn’t even thought to warn Bucky about the noise.

He finds Buck curled beneath the desk in the study, shaking. Two steps forward, one step back.

It doesn’t help that Bucky forgets Steve’s birthday the next day; a whole group of the Avengers surprise Steve that night in his own apartment with homemade chocolate cake (“It’s vegan!” pipes Maria) and buttercream frosting. 

Bucky makes an exit early on and spends most of the evening locked in his room, kicking himself. How could he  _ forget? _

Steve draws Bucky more and more, mostly unbeknownst to the muse. It starts in the evenings, when Bucky’s worn out from a day of trying to be human, of holding together the parts of himself that are constantly trying to split off in every direction. Steve draws him when the sun’s trickling through the window shades in an apartment that looks uncannily like it came straight out of 1943, and Bucky’s dozing on the couch, body finally relaxed after hours of tension, hours of watching his back out of habit even though no one in the vicinity is out to get him (or at least,  _ probably _ isn’t out to get him. A few characters around here are still dubious allies). It’s in this twilight-zone moment of peace that Steve starts to draw Bucky. He doesn’t even realize he’s made the conscious decision to do it, exactly, but the napkin kind of ended up in his hand and the pencil was nearby and the lighting was so  _ good... _

Yeah. The lighting was good for two months straight. So good it fills three of Steve’s sketchbooks.

 

* * *

 

Bucky eventually finds the notebooks one day, searching the apartment because he can’t remember where he set  _ All The Light We Cannot See  _ down (he’s been on a World War II historical fiction kick lately; if he couldn’t see the end of the war, at least he can catch himself up). The drawings make him uncomfortable immediately. First, Steve has been watching him when he’s so...vulnerable and naked and exposed, usually asleep on the couch or in his bed. It feels invasive and bothers him under his skin, makes him want to wring his hands. 

Sigh.

He doesn’t like the way his body looks with only one arm. It’s one thing to be so obviously fucked up on the inside; it hurts all the way through his spine, but at least no one else can hear his thoughts, the days he thinks about jumping from bridges or dreams about bathtubs of blood, sometimes his own, sometimes not. No one can hear the times when he thinks in the third person or forgets his name and panics as he unpacks every memory he has, searching and searching for his own fucking  _ name.  _

But the missing arm...it reminds him that he is literally a broken person, a piece of him torn from the whole. He sees the grotesque, scar-tissued lump on his shoulder and wants to throw up, remembering the blood spurting, the handlers shoving metal and sticks and unwashed hands into the gaping wound, remembers blinking in the snow as his flesh arm lay feet away from him at a crooked angle, the last time he ever saw his own left hand.

Yeah. He doesn’t like being drawn too much.

He doesn’t say anything to Steve, though. Steve needs his outlets, too. And sketching at the end of the night seems a little better than sending another punching bag to the growing punching-bag graveyard in the dumpster behind Stark Tower. Besides, it’s sort of funny to see how  _ Steve  _ sees him. Not the haunted eyes that Bucky catches in the mirror from time to time, but the limp curve of a hand that looks gentle enough to hold a baby bird. Not the rippling bicep that’s inhumanly strong, something to be restrained, but the softness of a belly that enjoys Chinese takeout a little too much. Not the hard set of a tense jaw that he tries and tries to unclench but never quite manages to, but the fond scrunch of a nose twitching mid-dream. 

And by funny, he means nice.

 

Steve’s new favorite thing to do, besides draw Bucky and hide his drawings so Bucky won’t find themt, is rant about Donald Trump. Bucky, who still feels like only a visitor in this century, can’t say that he’s become particularly invested in American politics (can he even vote? He’s not sure. Wonder what happened to his old driver’s license? Sure the bouncers would  _ love  _ an ID from 1934). 

But Steve’s got his activist muscles flexing – he loves this country too much for his own good.

“Buck,  _ how  _ can he pull out of the Paris Climate Agreement? Are you serious? What, we might be wrong about climate change and making a less polluted world for no reason?! What’s the man  _ thinking _ ?”

“Weren’t you the guy who didn’t want to sign the Sokovia Accords?” Bucky asks neutrally.

“This is different though, Buck. Agreeing to reduce our carbon emissions ain’t givin’ away my independence. It’s saying I give a flying fuck about the globe and all its inhabitants.”

 

“It is 2017, I cannot  _ believe _ we are still fighting for this shit. Ms. Stillman down the street was a suffragette, you remember that? Gee whiz, I shoulda gone to the Women’s March, I really shoulda...”

“Gee whiz?” Bucky smiles. “Ain’t heard that one in a while.”

“Yeah, well, you’d say it too if you knew what our Commander-in-Chief said about the ladies he’s groped.”

Bucky asks; Steve recites a few particularly vulgar Presidential statements about women’s bodies. 

“Gee whiz, indeed,” Bucky sighs.

 

“You read up about the Stonewall Riots in them  _ Life  _ magazines I lent you?” Steve asks.

“Sure did. Brave men and women. Real trail-blazers – I never had balls like that back in the day.”

“None of us did,” Steve says softly. They’ve never really talked about it aloud, but it’s been a sort of unspoken understanding between them. Maybe. Or just an unspoken elephant in the room. Steve never really knows how to address it.

“You hear about Orlando?” Buck asks.

“Shit’s fucked up,” Steve responds.

“The mouth on you today, Rogers,” Bucky notices. 

“These things get me fired up, I tell ya, Buck. Sometimes, I question whether this country’s even worth savin’. I really do.”

“I went to JFK, y’know? When he initiated the Muslim Ban – you hear about that? People from a buncha countries in the Middle East ain’t allowed in anymore. I really can’t believe it, Buck. I looked at the Statue of Liberty my whole damn life. The same one that greeted my Ma from Ireland, your folks, too. We’re a country of immigrants, and here we are, breaking our own First Amendment. Christ.”

“You get ‘em in?”

“Stark’s lawyers did.”

“Seems like the Avengers have been busy outside the battlefield.”

“I’d argue this  _ is  _ the battlefield, these days.”

 

Bucky likes to see the Captain America he remembers shine through this riled-up Steve Rogers. Likes to see him standing up for what he believes in. It looks good on him. So would a bubble bath, a half-decent meal, and a good night’s sleep, but these days, that’s a lot to ask from Cap, who’s been attending meetings left and right, going out on extra missions to make up for the time he lost in Wakanda and taking care of Bucky,  _ and _ attending almost all of Bucky’s therapy and intel sessions.

 

Meanwhile, Bucky’s actually getting...really into this yoga thing. Steve begins to notice, now that Bucky’s allowed out of the Tower by himself. Well, mostly by himself. The Avengers  _ had _ decided that it’d be best if he had an escort, though that only lasted three weeks before Bucky asked if he could go out all by himself. Which was, in and of itself, a huge milestone. It’d made Steve weak with pride, seeing Bucky ask for things again. 

Fuck. He’s going soft, isn’t he?

Bucky still wears the cuff to yoga (his classmates probably surmise that he’s on probation, and Lord what he wouldn’t give for this to be for a DUI and not brainwashing) and has to put in sound-canceling earphones whenever he goes out to make sure a rogue Russian tourist or music drifting out of an open door doesn’t accidentally zap him.

Bucky, however, is thriving. His yoga buddies at the studio know him as James (safer for him, safer for them), and they  _ love  _ him. There’s Jennifer, a single mom raising the cutest four-year-old on the face of the planet (Bucky’s seen Jennifer’s iPhone camera roll plenty of times). There’s Alyssa, a kind-hearted Black woman and the only one in the class who can hold the handstand scorpion. There’s Bianca, who still speaks with a thick Puerto Rican accent that Bucky could listen to forever. The ladies adore him, placing their mats near him and chatting him up after class, asking about his job (he tells them he does mechanical work, which isn’t a total lie) and his weekend plans (uh) and his love life (double uh). It’s not quite what he expected life would be like in the twenty-first century, but he’s certainly not complaining. The women teach him how to stretch, how to order fruity mixed drinks after class (which seems antithetic to the yoga, but it doesn’t do much to him anyway) and how to perfect his man bun. Bianca even takes him yoga-pants shopping once. He starts to have a life outside of the Avengers Tower, and it makes him feel human again, gives him the space he’s needed to just breathe. It’s kind of a falsehood – he’s only allowed to go a certain radius from the Tower, and the cuff  _ definitely  _ has a tracker, but still. Even the illusion of space is good for a mind that’s been bottled up for far too long. 

 

* * *

 

Natasha asks if she can accompany Bucky to yoga. She’s admittedly a little jealous of how  _ quickly  _ Bucky seems to be adjusting to his new life as a human being rather than a weapon of mass destruction. She wishes she could be downright happy for him, but the truth is, deep down, there’s a jealousy she can’t wish away. She’s been away from the Soviets for almost a decade, and still she wakes up...

Whatever. She goes to his yoga class and finds herself surprised by how...how easy Bucky is with everyone there. In this separate world, away from the Avengers and the people who have read his files, who know the torture his body has been through and the lives that have been cut short by him, he looks  _ normal _ . He asks the dude sitting at the front desk of the studio how his girlfriend is, how the movie they were planning to see last weekend was. He rolls out his mat next to a woman called Jennifer who instantly gushes that she took Bucky’s advice and went vegetarian for the week and her bloat has gone down so much. Natasha kind of wants to kill her.

Is this the  _ Winter Soldier _ we’re talking about here?

By the end of the class, though, Natasha has made 21 enemies. What? It’s not her fault that her body is inhumanly flexible. Still, she’s impressed with Bucky’s progress, his strong muscles and the calm that visibly settles across him as he moves, mind and body synchronized and breathing as one. The peace within him is palpable. Even Natasha feels like the stormy ocean inside of her has quieted for the first time in ages as beads of sweat roll down her back and her fancy black sports bra with the snazzy cutouts in the back is soaked through. 

She does make the mistake of mentioning her yoga outing to Clint when she’s back at Avengers Tower downing grilled cheese and red wine, and F.R.I.D.A.Y, J.A.R.V.I.S’s successor, picks it up and mentions it in Stark’s daily briefing the next morning.

Two days later, an Iron Man yoga mat appears outside Steve’s door with a big bow on in it and a note that reads:

 

_ Yoga? Really, Tin Man? _

 

Nat’s not surprised later in the week when she hears Steve lecturing Bucky impatiently about why we must not throw things out of the window on the forty-fourth floor.  _ Yes, even unwanted gifts. _

 

Finally, Steve also agrees to go to yoga with Bucky, saying if it’s important to Buck, it’s important to him. Natasha’s wary – if they all start going to his classes, can it really be much of an escape? But Barnes insists on introducing them to his friends (still weird) and so they go. Steve usually just does a few poses in the morning, and when they go all together, Nat can see he’s not prepared for the class atmosphere or the humidity of the room. But despite all the distractions, it’s obvious that he can’t take his eyes off Barnes.

People are beautiful when they’re happy.

  
  


**PART V**

**Four Limbed Chaturaṅga**

 

The leaves are getting crisp on the trees, browning and yellowing and littering the sidewalks with their colorful carcasses. Life continues to pitch forward, guns blazing, and waits for no one.

James Buchanan Barnes, however, has become deeply frustrated. He can’t do all of the yoga poses that he wants to try. He’s hardly any use to Bruce beyond someone who can hand him the right tools and backseat drive. He’s tired of losing his page when he reads outside on a breezy day.

Shoelaces. Can openers. Shampoo. Button-downs. Putting toothpaste on a toothbrush. Xbox. Cutting into a steak. He hates the tingling phantom limb that always itches right before he goes to bed and the way people stare when they see his sleeve is safety-pinned to his shirt, limp and flapping. He’s been doing everything Dr. Johnson’s asked, even talking to his therapists and the like. By God, isn’t it time he got his fucking arm back?

Dr. Johnson initially declines Bucky’s request; after all, the point of surgically removing the metal arm was to neutralize the Winter Soldier. Putting it  _ back  _ seems not only counterintuitive, but dangerous. But Bucky plays nice. He does his homework. He recovers more and more intel on Wednesdays, and once the coordinates he gives lead to a covered land mine, potentially saving a dozen lives, maybe more. He keeps up with yoga, he helps Steve with the reports, he plays cards with Bruce and Clint, does the ‘socialization’ part of his recovery that he’d so long avoided. Bucky’s been on his best behavior, but every time he brings it up, Dr. Johnson shoots him down.

He’s insistent. He asks about the arm at every therapy session and in every report he submits on his recovery. He mentions it in the birthday card he and Steve give to her. He emails her research he’s done on prosthetics. With her growing soft spot for Bucky, Dr. Johnson finally caves and agrees to  _ only  _ humor him. They set up a meeting to  _ just talk  _ about the  _ possibility  _ of re-installing the arm. But Bucky’s a charmer – always has been.

Two weeks later, they’re working out the logistical details with the team of doctors, Steve sitting quiet and patient nearby for moral support. Stark’s going to tinker with the arm, improve it, update some of the parts, which makes Bucky’s heart sink with mistrust and regret. Christ. The man whose parents died at the hands of that arm is the one who has to fix it up. 

A spark of worry ignites in Bucky’s chest. What if Stark pulls a fast one? Makes the arm kill him in his sleep or something? He’ll have to ask Banner to take a look at it for him.

The technology from the sedative cuff is being transferred to the prosthetic, though it won’t be just  _ any  _ Russian that triggers it anymore, only his actual trigger words, which will give him more freedom to walk safely about the streets of New York, a city of immigrants if there ever was one, without the fear of passing a Russian family and slumping to the ground.

That was the other thing. No longer would the trigger words be connected to a tranquilizer nor the shock that could bring him to his knees. Once the technology’s transferred to the arm, his trigger words will only deactivate the arm, short-circuit it so it’s no longer a weapon, rather than shut down his whole body. He’s...actually making progress, like they all reassured him he would months ago when he was so doubtful. Good, visible progress. He’d thought the old mantra “time heals all wounds” was pretty meaningless, because for him, time was part of the problem, but...well. He’s getting his arm back. 

Sam comes to talk to Bucky before the decision’s cleared by everyone – the Avengers want to have a say, after all, and he was the best person to send. Friend enough for Bucky to trust him with the truth, therapist enough to assess Bucky report back. Sam doesn’t love the idea, but he’ll do what he has to do.

“The thing weighs a ton, and connects to your spine. Every time you move, it tears at your flesh. You’re constantly ripping and healing. You sure you want that, Barnes?” Sam asks, looking serious. They’re in Sam’s foyer now, which is laughably different from Steve’s apartment, with a red-and-chrome interior, all crisp, sharp corners. There’s an expensive-looking cherry red bass guitar in the corner and the biggest flat screen Bucky’s ever seen.

“It’s my arm, Sam.” Sam’s beard’s been freshly trimmed in the salon downstairs. It makes him look more serious, though, which Bucky could do without. 

“It’s Hydra’s arm. That is not your arm, dude.” 

“It will be, when Stark’s done playing with it. They’re making it more lightweight, cleaning her up.”

“Oh, it’s a her now? Uh-huh, okay. You have to admit, this is kind of crazy, Barnes.”

“I feel unsafe without it,” Bucky says truthfully. “I live in one of the most targeted cities in the world with the most physically enhanced people on Earth who each have about a dozen targets on their own backs. I got people I care about and a lot of unknowns I’m gonna be up against. I want to be ready.”

“You sure it’s got nothin’ to do with you punishing yourself? Because 70 years of brainwashing is punishment enough for anyone.”

“Think I don’t know that?” Bucky says ruefully, frowning at Sam. 

Sam sighs, scratches his beard. “If this is what you want, I’ll tell them.”

Bucky relaxes his shoulders. He’s gotta be more patient. Gotta put himself in their shoes and walk around in ‘em.  _ Empathy _ . That’s what Dr. Johnson called it. He had to work on that. 

“I know,” Bucky finally says, putting his hand on Sam’s shoulder.  _ We’re still friends. Promise. _

 

In preparation, Stark allows Bucky into his own personal laboratory in the Penultimate Penthouse (Tony’s particularly proud of the name for the second-highest floor in the Tower). Bucky was, by now, familiar with all the other labs, where the tools were, which projects were near completion and which still had threatening bits of live wire poking out of them. He enjoyed throwing on a wifebeater (atrociously named, admittedly) tying his hair back and working with his hand. But he’d never set foot in Stark’s space, where the Iron Man suit was rumored to reside.

Bucky takes the elevator up, unaccompanied and a little caffeinated, and he’s not sure which of those is causing his foot to tap nervously.

He steps out of the elevator cooly, wearing all black and big boots that make him feel tough. Mostly. With his fist raised, he’s about to knock on the big silver doors that lead to Stark’s lab, but just as his hand is about to make contact, the automatic doors zoom open.

“Er, hi,” Bucky says, finding himself face to face with a stern-looking Tony Stark and his impeccably sculpted goatee.

“Whatever. Come.”

Okay, no small talk, then.

Stark leads Bucky all the way to the back, to a largely open space next to several computers. In the center of the room is a rotating hologram of Bucky’s metal arm, Soviet star emblazoned in a bright and unforgiving red. Bucky wonders briefly if anyone will be able to hear his screams from up here.

“This is gonna be quick, you hear me? I want yes/no answers, that’s it,” Stark commands.

“Yes, sir,” Bucky responds, not sure himself if he’s being sarcastic or cooperative. Stark is impatient.

“You want the arm back?”

Bucky sits down in a rolling chair. “Yes.”

“Does it have any tripwires?” 

“Probably.”

“You ever see it respond to any spoken commands?”

“Only my trigger words, when it was connected to my body. Not sure if that’s–”

“Enough.”

Bucky nods. Right. Yes or no answers.

“Did it weigh too much?”

Bucky hesitates. The answer is  _ yes. _ But...does he want it to change? 

“Yes,” he decides on truth.  _ Steve would be proud _ , he thinks.

They go on like this, Stark trying to learn as much as he can about a piece of interesting prosthetic technology while also trying to talk to the guy he’ll most likely only ever see as the Winter Soldier as little as possible.

“Did the arm ever turn against you?”

“Yes.”

“Did it hurt you?”

Bucky reveals hand-shaped scars on his remaining shoulder, as if one of those arcade claw machines had taken a chunk out of his skin. “Yes.”

“Did you control the arm with your mind?”

“Sort of.”

“Explain.”

“It did what my brain wanted it to do. But I was never really conscious, during those periods. I didn’t...my brain responded to outside stimuli with a mind of its own, like it wasn’t  _ my brain.  _ The voice in my head was the Soldier’s. When I escaped, the arm didn’t work at first. It only listened to the Soldier. I trained it up again over time. We...have a complicated relationship.”

“Are there any hidden weapons in the arm?”

“No.”

“What year was it installed?”

“’45. With minor updates for the better part of thirty years. New arm entirely in ’71. Again in ’90. I sort of lost count after that, they wiped me a lot more then. Don’t remember anything chronologically.”

Bucky thinks maybe Stark’s starting to feel some sympathy, but he keeps asking questions. Even when they make Bucky shake and Stark has to watch him push through a flashback. Even then.

The tradeoff for Bucky getting his arm back is that he has to start what Dr. Johnson calls ‘physical therapy for the brain.’ Back in the 30s, people didn’t “exercise.” They didn’t hop on treadmills in elaborate gyms; they just played ball in the street or went dancing. Now, he’s finding out that there’s “exercise” for the  _ brain, _ and he’s just about had it with this century.

Dr. Johnson says the technology going into the arm will shut down the entire bionic appendage if it detects Bucky’s trigger words. However, she’s clearly tired of putting bandaids on Bucky’s bullet holes and is massively regretting the shock cuff that Bucky so despises. Why deactivate the entire human being, she says, rather than just making him immune to the trigger words in the first place? So she goes rogue, veering from the rest of the medical team to start private meetings with Bucky to begin undoing his brainwashing. She says she’s not clearing to get the arm fitted until he can pass tests where he can hear his trigger words and ignore them.

These meetings are unsurprisingly grueling and make Bucky feel like it’s week one all over again; the shock of his cuff – no worse than a dog collar, she insists unhelpfully, is ubiquitous as she untrains his response the trigger words. They tell stories, so he can begin associating the words with new memories.  _ Daybreak _ , the morning he and Steve visited Becca’s grave.  _ Homecoming _ , Brooklyn, New York, Steve. Therapy is exhausting. His brain  _ hurts.  _ Steve gives him head massages and painkillers that don’t do squat as he suffers through headache after headache. Self-doubt runs rampant again, an echo of  _ I’m not worth this  _ ricocheting in his too-empty mind, with still too many holes in his memory and The Soldier waiting to force his way in.

He gets better at the exercises, though. Not perfect. Like having an extra guest in his brain, he can still feel the Soldier stomping around back there sometimes; he still blacks out and doesn’t remember long periods of time in which he’s sure he’s lost control. But he gets stronger. The marijuana helps ease the anxiety and lets him get some rest so he can try again tomorrow. He gets strong enough, finally, that Dr. Johnson clears him for the reattachment with a stunning smile he’s not sure he’s ever seen on her before.

“желание,” Dr. Johnson whispers.  _ Longing.  _

Nothing.

“ржaвый,” she says.  _ Rusted.  _

Bucky grimaces, but says nothing.

“Семнадцать.”  _ Seventeen. _

Bucky has broken into a sweat. “I’m James Buchanan Barnes, Sergeant of the 107th, born March...”

“Рассвет.”  _ Daybreak. _

Another grunt. “Born March 10, 1917.” He shakes his head like a dog, clearing it.

“I think you’re ready, James.”

 

Steve’s got company.

In a good way, that is. Nat has flocked to his side as he waits, knees bouncing nervously, for Buck’s anesthesia to wear off. In a way, his whole life has been like this – waiting for Bucky.

Waiting for him to come home from war, alone in their apartment.

Waiting for him to come-to on Arnim Zola’s table the first time. 

Waiting for him to recognize Steve again.

Waiting for him to come out of cryo in Wakanda.

Waiting for him to come back.

This time, though, Steve’s anything but alone as he waits for Bucky to wake up, two-armed. Natasha quite literally sets up camp in his apartment, and Steve’s gratitude for her support is unparalleled. She ignores him when Steve says he doesn’t need any of this, because of course he does. 

Of course he does.

It’s finally all catching up with him, now that Bucky is downstairs post-surgery, and the doctors have told him (more than once) that he’s not allowed anywhere near him; the arm is still dangerous, anesthesia does weird things to the brain, and Steve’s still the Winter Soldier’s last, unfinished mission. He can’t see Bucky for three days. 

It’s like he’s been on an adrenaline kick from the minute Bucky came back to life in Wakanda.  _ In May. _ Christ, the _ leaves  _ are changing now. That’s months of not really feeding himself properly, staying up odd hours, just orbiting Bucky non-stop, the gravitational pull of  _ must-protect-at-all-costs  _ eroding away at him, day after day. Losing himself.

Fuck. He got himself  _ shot. _

Nat must have figured Steve’d go stir-crazy waiting for Bucky – which he is – and so she forces her company upon him. They order pizza – she makes him watch movies (he gulps at  _ The Wizard of Oz _ and thinks too hard about metal arms and brains and hearts and courage. Maybe he should watch this one again with Bucky – the war was going on when it first came out at the pictures, after all.). One morning, he even tries to draw Natasha, but his hand shakes. 

“You’ve lost weight.” Natasha frowns at him the second night.

Steve takes a moment to look at himself, really look at himself. She’s...not wrong.

“It happens.”

“How’ve you been, Steve?”

He raises his eyebrows at her. “I mean, Bucky seems to be–”

“No,” she interrupts. “How’ve  _ you  _ been? What’s new in your life?”

Steve almost laughs. “I see you almost every day, Nat. You know how I’ve been.”

“ _ Fine _ ,” she gives in. “Well, how are things going with Sharon?” Nat says knowingly, a glint in her eye. 

“I...we don’t...I haven’t seen her in a while,” Steve admits gruffly. 

“That’s alright, Steve,” she says soothingly, which is weird coming from her, but he  _ feels  _ soothed. She doesn’t demand more from him, just sits close and lets him know she’s there. Even without too many words, they’ve started to unpack the crap that’s settled on his insides. Finally he lets himself be taken care of.

As per usual, all of Steve’s fears and what-ifs about botched surgery and cardiac arrest are assuaged when Bucky walks confidently out of the medical ward on the twenty-third floor, shirtless because the fabric will irritate his healing tissue. A wad of gauze is wrapped around his shoulder where flesh meets machine. He walks out himself, stable and sturdy and there. Blinking back the reflections of the fluorescent lights is his shiny metal arm, where it belongs. Bucky’s smile, at seeing Steve, at feeling  _ restored _ , is the most radiant it’s been since Steve’s seen him. Steve’s own mouth turns up in a one-sided, crooked smile.

“Buck.”

And Steve is wrapping his arms around Bucky, his Bucky, who is alive and well and whole again, his forehead resting on Steve’s chin, breathing together. Just two boys from Brooklyn.

Suddenly, Steve tenses – he realizes that only Bucky’s flesh hand is wrapped around him. The metal one, foreign and intimidating and inhuman, rests at Bucky’s side. 

Without a second thought, Steve reaches down, grabs the metal arm – it’s cold and begins to whir quietly – and places it on his back to mirror the other.

“ _ Both _ ,” he says sternly. This is important.

Bucky squeezes him tighter, a fistful of Steve’s sweatshirt in each hand.

 

* * *

 

The new arm is pretty damn incredible. Each sleek moving part has been replaced by a slightly lighter-weight metal so that Bucky stops injuring himself every time he moves. Unlike most prosthetics, Bucky’s arm has some unusual technologies, extending into his body, muscle, nerve, and bone, attached at the spine and rib cage. Truly, a part of his body.

It takes a week for his doctors to announce with confidence that his body has accepted the arm and won’t attack or reject it. 

Pepper bakes Bucky brownies when she hears the good news. Get-well cards with snarky comments are delivered to their apartment on the forty-fourth floor. Natasha brings by a giant teddy bear, mostly ironically. The Avengers stop by. It’s not much, but it’s family.

There’s only one  _ really  _ dark moment, when Bucky wakes in the middle of the night (he’s sleeping alone in his own bed these days, since the nightmares have stopped and that’s what usually brought him knocking on Steve’s door) and goes to the bathroom; he’s blinking sleep out of his eyes and not turning on any of the lights because  _ bright  _ and he pulls himself out of the convenient seam of his boxers to pee, looks down at himself and there is a  _ metal arm metal arm metal arm. _

He screams, staring at his hands in disgust and surprise, forgetting and remembering all at once, confused by what he’s had done and whether he’s Bucky or the Winter Soldier.

Steve finds him curled up on the floor and takes him to bed, metal arm and all.

 

**PART VI**

**Reverse Warrior**

 

MEMO

 

TO: The Creeps™ Hanging Around My Building

FROM: Your loving landlord

RE: Dead turkeys and uncharacteristic expressions of gratitude that make everyone uncomfortable

DATE: Nov. 16, 2017

 

Your presence is requested at Thanksgiving Dinner by Anthony Edward Stark. In the penthouse. Dinner served at 5. BYOB.

 

F.R.I.D.A.Y.

Stark Industries

 

____

 

_ From: Sam Wilson _

_ November 16, 2017 _

_ 7:55 pm _

_ You see this shit? _

 

From: Captain Stubborn

November 16, 2017

8:07 pm

I know. What happened to picking up the phone and giving someone a phone call? Or letters! God, so much has been lost. I swear, this culture...

 

_ From: Sam Wilson _

_ November 16, 2017 _

_ 8:08 pm _

_...I didn’t mean the fact that he sent a memo, Cap. _

 

_ 8:09 pm _

_ I mean the fact that Stark wants us all at Thanksgiving. _

 

_ 8:09 pm _

_ Operative word: “all” _

 

_ 8:10 pm _

_ You realize we haven’t ALL been together since Rhodes’s crash, right? _

 

_ 8:10 pm _

_ It’s gonna be weird.  _

 

Thanksgiving dinner is Bucky’s first public appearance in the Tower with his freshly-installed arm. Earlier that morning, he’d shaved using his metal arm, which Steve found impressive. He’s also slicked back his hair, making him look so much like 1942 Bucky that Steve has to swallow back the emotions filling his throat. Steve had tried to make mashed potatoes and cornbread, a dish for each of them to bring, but while the mashed potatoes had turned out fine if a bit salty, the cornbread had been left in the oven for thirty minutes too long and had accidentally burned, setting off the fire alarms and freaking out Natasha, resulting in a spate of texts.

From somewhere below, Natasha had thought to herself,  _ Please don’t be my idiots. _

Before they go to dinner they watch the Macy’s Day parade from their window as it rolls past in a burst of light, color and music. They set their steaming coffee mugs – Steve’s got a Hawkeye mug that says  _ Aim For Your Dreams  _ and Bucky’s has the Captain America shield on it – on the windowsill and lean against the glass in their boxers, both semi-confused about the giant balloons floating by (they cannot place the giant yellow square character for the life of them) and laugh as they make up stories for the balloons, making references only someone who played cops and robbers in the streets of 1930s Brooklyn would understand. 

The dinner itself goes well, even though Stark starts them all off with “Alright, sort-of family. You know the rules. No weapons at the table.” He raises his eyebrows.

Hawkeye sets his bow in the middle of the table. Pepper puts down two pearl-handled revolvers. Bucky pulls three knives out of his belt, shoe, and a pocket of his brown, well-loved leather jacket. 

Stark quirks an eyebrow.

Natasha pulls out ninja stars, a taser, the knives in each of her boots, those little electric shockers...

She shrugs and shoves the pile toward the center of the table, where the small mountain of weapons sits. Steve piles it all in the shield.

“Let’s begin,” Stark says, smiling hugely. Steve knows that for Tony, who has no family, Thanksgiving is kind of a big deal, even for him, it’s not about the illusion of Native Americans and pilgrims hanging out to make White America feel better about taking all of their land. No, Steve can see it’s about having the people that annoy Tony most around because, well, the people who annoy him the most tend to be the ones Tony loves more than anything. Steve sighs. Tony just...loves them with insults and below-the-belt nicknames, is all.

Clint has brought his wife and kids, who crawl over Aunt Tashy (which appears to amuse Stark to no end) and demand to sit in her lap during the entire meal. Banner is there in a lavender button-down that suits him just fine – he sits beside Bucky and asks him a million questions about the arm, its technology, how it fits. Steve smiles to himself, watching the two of them nerd out happily beside him. On Steve’s other side is Wanda, who seems a little wine-drunk and has poured one out for her late brother at least twice – thankfully, one of Stark’s robots is buzzing around their feet, vacuuming and collecting table scraps. It takes care of the wine stains.

Maria is there, finally looking relaxed, and Pepper is glowing, a welcoming host. Thor has arrived, making just about everyone else at the table feel small, with Jane at his side. He offers Steve and Bucky Asgardian ale, clearly hoping they’ll have a little fun, but they refuse. 

“More for me then, mortals,” shrugs Thor, downing his goblet. “I do not understand this Earthly holiday. Is it a harvest festival”

“Don’t get her started,” Stark starts, as Natasha begins to open her mouth about colonization again.

Steve is floored by the sheer...domesticity of it. The weight of Sam’s words – that this was the first time all of the Avengers would be together since their civil war – resonates with him as he watches some of the fastest, strongest, most powerful humans and non-humans and semi-humans in the world fight over the cranberry sauce and laugh when Clint farts at the table and gossip and drink and celebrate the fact that they’re alive and have food on the table.

Sam’s done with talking now, he sees. On Thanksgiving his mouth is full of one thing: turkey. Or possibly pie.

Bucky’s thigh moves under the table, until it’s touching Steve’s, perhaps accidentally, though he doesn’t move it for the rest of dinner. A small act of solidarity. 

Natasha is by far the loudest as she screams at the football game on TV – Steve couldn’t care less for football, a celebration of empty-headed aggression. Clint yells at the TV with her, while Banner, Stark, and Bucky talk shop, hoping to start work on a Helicarrier engine. Pepper and Maria talk work and move onto the subject of food, and Steve joins, hoping to pick up some tips from two of the better chefs in the Tower. 

After his own Thanksgiving meal with Aunt May, the Spider-boy ( _“Call me Peter”_ ) shows up with his hair gelled down. Steve thinks he seems like a good kid. Steve tells him about Brooklyn and he tells Steve about Queens and eventually Bucky’s there, too, jabbering away about the boroughs of New York and making everyone laugh, both his hands moving eccentrically to convey whatever mile-a-minute story he’s on this time.

Beneath the teasing, the banter and the snark and the truly mind-boggling amount of Avengers paraphernalia (they dined solely on Avengers plastic dishware, making fun of one another as they traded plates to get the Avenger they wanted) that Stark keeps in his kitchen, there is a layer of support there. Of love. It’s a weird feeling, being in a room of people who you know would take a bullet for you, not because they’ve said it or your friendship is so deep that you  _ think  _ they’d take a bullet for you. No. These are people who have  _ already _ taken a bullet for you and have kept on fighting by your side, through it all.

They’ve been through a hell of a lot this year.

 

When Bucky and Steve return to their apartment, well-fed and sleepy, with at least a week’s worth of leftovers in tow, they don’t settle in their usual evening spots – Bucky’s is near the TV where his stack of half-finished books lies in wait; Steve’s is near the lamp, sketchbook open to a fresh page. They walk right by them, and a slight tension hangs in the air. Unlike the normal tension of missions or intel or coping with PTSD, this tension is...inviting. A butterflies in the stomach kind of tension. An I-want-your-body-closer-to-mine kind of tension.

There’s no real a need for an exchange of words, with this kind of feeling. No need for explanation.

They’re tired, though – so tired, they fall asleep next to each other, still fully dressed. They fall asleep next to each other, and for the first time, it’s not because Bucky is shaking, or because there’s going to be PTSD-triggering fireworks, or because an intel session has stolen all the air from Bucky’s chest. Sure, they’ve slept in the same bed pretty often, but it was usually out of need. Safety. Tonight, there’s no panic attack. No, “Hey...I’m kind of scared” or “It’s been a bad night” whispered in the dark. They sleep next to each other because they can. They want to. They’re free.

Steve turns over to press against Bucky’s back because that’s just where he belongs. His hand folds around Bucky’s metal one for a squeeze in return.

 

* * * 

As Steve snores nasally against the nape of his neck, Bucky remains alert, his mind darting everywhere at once.

Bucky  _ is  _ gay, and he’s known it for some time now, though he realizes now, with Steve’s hand in his, that he’s never said it aloud. Admittedly, he’s never had much chance to act on it, ‘course. He’d been sucked off by a predatory creep at the docks, just the once, but he doesn’t really count that; he’d been drunk as a skunk, angry at the fact that Steve had to wait in those fucking bread-lines while he practically begged for work, and someone had offered so he’d gotten blown with the sea-salt winds of the Atlantic Coast in his face. So what.

Besides, that shit could get you in trouble back then. He’d thought the army might straighten him out, and for a while, it almost seemed to have worked. He was so tired and dirty and smelly and goddamn terrified all the time that he didn’t spend too many waking hours thinking about things he’d like to stick his cock into. The men around him weren’t much to look at either – grimy as hell, farting in their sleep, with nicotine stains on their skinny fingers. ‘Course, that was before Captain Blue-Eyes turned up, hovering over his gurney at Zola’s lab, and it was all downhill from there. He’d loved Steve before the war, but he could forget all that when his boy was an ocean away. Not so much when he grew a foot and a six-pack and looked at Bucky like he was the only goddamn person on Earth.

With Bucky’s patchy memory, he gets tidbits of his old crush on Steve back little by little. He surprises himself, honestly with how much his former self loved, really  _ loved  _ little Steve Rogers, with his heart of gold and his Brooklyn fists.

Bucky’s known for a while now that Bucky from Before had a thing for Steve Rogers. It’s more of a recent development that  _ he _ , Bucky now,  _ still  _ has a thing for Steve Rogers. And it’s kind of a throbbing, hard-to-ignore thing in his underpants right now.

It’s a goddamn privilege, he thinks as he watches the moon from their window, to just have a crush. Even an impossible one. A privilege, to want someone again.

T he week he ran away, when he was haunting his old stomping grounds in Brooklyn, looking for food and hiding his face, he’d noticed a couple of men holding hands in the street. As he’d ventured out of the Tower with his growing freedoms, he’d seen more and more of it. “Pride,” Nat told him over sushi (another wonderful gift of the 21st century) that gay people could actually get married now. He hadn’t meant to, but he’d stumbled upon porn, too, which had all kinds of categories, like girl on girl and guy on guy and threesomes and anal and strap-ons. He’s concluded that his favorite yoga instructor is probably gay. The Internet says one in ten people are. 

For so long, it hadn’t seemed important. When your brain’s been put in a blender as many times as his has and you’re shell-shocked and can’t breathe and sometimes recite the names of all your victims in alphabetical order to make sure none of them are forgotten...well.

Let’s just say his sexual needs seemed like the least of his worries.

 

They talked about it one time when they were stoned, so Bucky knows Steve wasn’t much interested in sex after he came off the ice, like his libido went down with the crash in ‘45 and didn’t make it with him into this century. Steve had mournfully said that dames don’t do it for him anymore – not after he had to watch Pegs grow old and die. He’d even confessed about seeing Sharon, saying she was...what? An excuse? A distraction? A last-ditch effort to see if sex could bring him whatever was so evidently missing from his life? Apparently, the second time Steve went over to her place, he’d left with his tail between his legs, apologizing for not being able to get it up.

Bucky figured that Steve thought the idea of loving someone, of building a life with them, a future to look forward to, seemed impossible in this modern world, and Bucky wasn’t totally in disagreement. He’d told Bucky that the romance of it all was dead. And that you needed someone with shared life experience, someone who’d been around the same block as you. Bucky’d had to look away.

Stoned, Steve had rambled on, saying there weren’t exactly a lot of women who fit the bill of ‘shared life experience’ when the arctic explorers dragged him from his frozen grave. No one who could remember when booze was illegal or the real, live sound of the Mills Brothers or what it was like to plant a Victory Garden when your best mate was getting shipped out the next day. None of the other ninety-five-year-olds he knew were exactly viable options. Bucky’d bitten his tongue and not mentioned the elephant in the room. Especially when talking about anything remotely sexual makes Steve blush fiery red, so it’s not like he’d have talked about anything provocative, sexual, or, Christ, even emotional. Even Natasha’d said she couldn’t get a word out of him.

Steve is pretty oblivious in general; definitely to Bucky’s occasional advances the few times his confidence was up and he’d made off-the-cuff comments about how Steve looked nice or meant a lot to him. It was Bucky who taught Steve the word, “Bisexual;” Bucky who remembers a distinctly starry night on a drunken evening in Germany many years ago. A night when he’d thought,  _ Maybe in another universe.  _ A night when he’d thought,  _ ‘Til the end of the line.  _ A night when he’d thought,  _ What if? _ Seventy years later, and he still doesn’t know what Steve’d been thinking. Or if he’d been thinking about it at all.

Even on that night when they were so stoned and unusually honest, when Steve had rambled on about being in a century now where people can be themselves, thanks to the radicals and hippies and protesters who’d come before him – after him? – and who filled his podcasts and textbooks, Steve had just leaned into Bucky without saying what he really wanted. He’d talked vaguely of wanting more, and Bucky had wondered if maybe it was finally getting through Steve’s thick skull that he loved James Buchanan Barnes of the 107th. That he always had.

Even if Bucky doesn’t remember the 107th, but is trying really, really hard to.

 

Bucky had tried, once or twice, to get a read on Steve. The yoga girls had mentioned this ‘gaydar’ thing, but he hadn’t been able to find one or order it online, which meant doing things the old fashioned way. Except, the old-fashioned way might not work in this century and he’s not really sure how to ask the man he shares a bed with most nights – to ask Captain goddamn America – if he has...  _ feelings _ ... for men.

“Do you ever watch porn?” he’d asked Steve casually instead, several days before his arm surgery, trying desperately to figure out what was going on in Steve’s oblivious damn head.

“ _ No _ ,” Steve had denied, shocked, and he clearly meant it. Leave it to Captain America to be the most wholesome man on Earth. 

 

* * *

 

Steve wasn’t as oblivious as Bucky thought. He had, on his own, texted Sam about it, as he began questioning himself and while still too bull-headed to realize that Bucky was trying to figure it all out too.

 

From: Captain Stubborn

November 10, 2017

3:33 am

Sam, I got a weird question.

 

3:33 am

Do you think I’m gay?

 

_ From: Sam Wilson _

_ November 10, 2017 _

_ 7:08 am _

_ Hmmm lemme ask YOU some Qs _

 

_ 7:09 am _

_ Do you  _ feel  _ gay? _

_ Does it matter? _

 

From: Captain Stubborn 

November 10, 2017

7:32 am

I don’t really have the answers to those questions.

 

From: Sam Wilson

November 10, 2017

7:34 am

That’s what the Q is for, bud. Questioning.

 

7:35 am

It mean you don’t gotta know all the answers, and that’s alright too.

 

7:37 am

Come down. Special invite to Falcon’s quarters before 9 am. Just don’t make a habit of it. 

 

From: Captain Stubborn

November 10, 2017

7:37 am

omw

 

“Okay, so the real question we’re asking today is not are you  _ gay  _ but are you in love with Bucky. Am I hearing that correctly?” Sam asks as they drink tea and play  _ Mario Kart.  _

“I guess,” Steve says, losing badly on Rainbow Road, his mind elsewhere.

“Okay, okay. So let me ask you some different questions then. First, do you have notebooks literally filled with pictures of Bucky’s face?”

“I mean...yeah...I draw, but–”

“Do you sleep next to him every night?”

“Well, yes, okay, yes, but that’s just a–”

“Are you in love with him?”

A long pause.

“Oh.”

“ _ And  _ there it is.”

 

When Steve and Bucky wake up, groggy and with food-hangovers, they creak to life, joints popping, toes curling, innocent moans escaping yawning mouths. 

Steve stirs first, pulling his arm back from where it’s rested heavily the entire night on Bucky’s side. It’s fallen asleep, so he shakes it tentatively, willing blood back into it. 

Speaking of blood flow...

Steve eases his hips back carefully from where they’re pressed against Bucky’s backside, and it’s not the first time he’s greeted the morning this way with the  _ other  _ captain who is...standing at attention, to say the least.

Christ. How’d he do this for so long and  _ not  _ realize he was at least a  _ little  _ gay? (The internet says that sexuality can fall on a spectrum. He likes the internet very much.) 

Just as he’s beginning to get out of the bed, Bucky wakes, blinking against the harsh light of the morning sun.

“Mornin’,” he says, turning over to face Steve, who has just managed to slip out of the bed and is unbuttoning the button-down he’d worn to Thanksgiving dinner and fallen asleep in – maroon and crumpled from spooning.

Steve clears his throat. “Good morning, Buck. How’d you sleep?”

“Like a dream,” Bucky smiles, bringing his arms over his head and stretching. Steve swallows and looks away, leaving his shirt on, unbuttoned. He turns away to take off the jeans he’s  _ also _ slept in, pulling them down around his ankles, kicking them off, and pulling on a pair of far more comfortable pajama pants. They won’t be doing any Black Friday shopping today. Crowds plus things they don’t need equals another lazy day in Stark’s high-rise.

When Steve turns back around, Bucky is complaining under his breath about how  _ tight  _ jeans are in this century,  _ dammit _ , and he unzips the pants and stretching back onto the violet pillows.

Steve balks.

“Bucky, are you...?”

He gets only a cheeky grin from Bucky, who’s unzipped his pants to reveal that beneath them are _Captain America underwear_ , Steve’s shield emblazoned _exactly_ where Bucky’s crotch is. Steve blushes at the Calvin Kleins ( _Jesus_ these people and their ironic merchandise fetish) and also because Bucky’s pants are unzipped in their bed and–

_ –and Bucky’s pants are unzipped in their BED. _

A tease of a happy trail disappears beneath the elastic, and Steve doesn’t know what to think. In fact, his brain has chosen this exact moment to  _ stop  _ thinking. But he doesn’t have to, because Bucky speaks first.

“Draw me,” he says, his voice dropping an octave. It’s a request Bucky hasn’t made once – Steve’s not even sure Bucky  _ knows  _ that he’s been sketching him for months, but it doesn’t matter. Steve stares blankly, disbelieving what he’s hearing.

“When I came out of the fridge” – Steve winces, but Bucky persists – “when I came out of the fridge, I thought I was the ugliest fucking monster, Steve. I saw this cold-blooded killer in my eyes. I saw the scars on my back, thinking I deserved each and every one that made me look less-than-human. I saw the sniper in my hand, I saw the lump of angry flesh that was my shoulder, I – I saw Frankenstein’s monster. In the mirror. I saw him. And you come along, Steve, and you’re, like, glowing from head to toe, all the time, and you rescue me from myself, and I thought the only way to escape your light was to live in the shadow. But....lately...with my arm back, and the yoga making my body do good things, positive things, and the way you look at me, like I got all my parts in the right places, like I’m  _ me  _ and not some conglomeration of horrors, like in my nightmares where they sew corpse limbs onto my shoulder with black rope. No, Steve, you look at me like I’m...Bucky.” He shrugs, smiling at his own words. “And right now. Right in this moment, Steve. I feel...” He swallows, surprising himself with this speech. “I dunno if ‘handsome’ is the right word.”

“Handsome is definitely the right word, Buck. You’re...you’re breathtaking,” Steve interjects.

“Draw me?” Bucky requests again. “I want to remember the feeling of being breathtaking to you.”

Steve’s breath hitches, and something warm deep in his belly stirs and burns, as he fetches his notebook off the table near his lamp with a “Wait right here” and comes back to find Bucky – not quite posing, exactly, but turning to let Steve see him, eyes locked on Steve’s from the bed as Steve sits down  against the doorframe, pencil moving quickly. His eyes keep finding their way to the half-hidden Captain America shield in Bucky’s pants, following the line of his sculpted abs. Admiring the metal arm, which Bucky wields today with a confidence he hasn’t shown since he snuck Patty Edmonds out of her house to take her and her sister on a double date to the school dance. 

Steve smiles to himself, still sketching, though the air feels electric and they’re only stalling the inevitable, really.

“You remember Patty Edmonds?” Steve asks, amused, as Bucky’s face comes to life on the page.

Bucky laughs out loud, throwing his head back. “The broad I took to the Homecoming Dance, you mean?”

“The very same.”

“She was one of the worst kissers I ever suffered through. You macked on her sister that night, right?”

Steve chuckles, nostalgic for another time. “I stood next to her in the dance hall for about thirty minutes and then split while you finger-banged Patty behind the school.”

“Right,” Bucky says, not really laughing as much anymore. “I don’t remember that part so much. You tell me about lots of the girls I had wrapped around me back then, and I remember ‘em, their names and such, but the kissing and the...what did you call it? Finger banging? I don’t remember that so much.”

“Must’ve not been so memorable,” Steve muses, feeling self-conscious as he draws Bucky’s nipples into the image. Christ. He’s drawn naked models before. C’mon, Rogers.

“It wasn’t,” Bucky says, frowning now as his eyebrows scrunch together, a look of  _ don’t you get it?  _ on his face. “My memories from before are all of you, Steve.” He licks his lips. “They just are.”

It feels like an eon passes before Steve finally looks up from the page again, the curve of his palm comfortingly covered in graphite again.

“Bucky...”

“Steve, I’m sorry it took me seventy years to tell you this, friend or...or captain...or brother...or whatever, but, Steve. I– I love you.” He tilts forward, out of the sideways pose that Steve’s been sketching, to rest both feet on the ground, hands clasped in his lap as he leans toward Steve, who’s still a good five feet away in the doorway.

He’s waiting for an answer.

Steve scrambles.

“So... you don’t care that I was with Pegs? Or, or Sharon?” Steve swallows hard.

“Steve, all I care about is that you start doing things for you and stop trying to please everybody.”

“In that case...” Steve gets to his feet swiftly, crosses the room in two big strides, puts his hands on either side of Bucky’s face, and pulls him into a rough kiss, sloppy and forceful, cutting off whatever else Bucky had planned to say because  _ this  _ is what he wants. 

This is what Captain America fucking wants, okay?

The moan of surprise from Bucky is enough to send an electric shock through his entire being. Steve remains standing, cupping Bucky’s face with his right hand as his left moves to tangle itself in Bucky’s long hair, as two arms – one metal, one flesh – snake around his waist and pull him closer, closer until there’s no way he can stay standing bent over like this and so he gently pushes Bucky back, back against the pillows as Steve crawls on top of him without breaking the kiss, their bodies urgent, hands everywhere to remind them that this is  _ real _ , this is here, this is now. Memorizing every inch with the fervor of seventy-years-too-late as their bodies synchronize, hips pressing hard against one another. And despite the fact that Steve’s been treating Bucky like a cracked windshield ready to shatter at any given moment, there is  _ nothing  _ gentle about the way Steve is riding Bucky right now.

“Holy  _ shit _ , Steve,” Bucky exhales as Steve moves to his neck, body still moving hard and fast against Bucky’s. “Slow, slow down, pal.” He laughs a shivery laugh, and Steve pulls off of where he’s been sucking at Bucky’s neck – a hickey blossoming that will have already healed in a few minutes. Steve looks down at Bucky, quirks his head like a confused puppy, and Bucky smiles up at him through the roughness of his stubble.

“What?” Steve breathes, arms pressing into the mattress to lift himself off of Bucky, his lips a little redder than usual. 

“Go slow for me, Stevie. I wanna savor it. Also, full disclosure, I haven’t had sex in about seventy-five years, pal.”

“It’ll come back to you,” Steve grins, diving back down to Bucky’s neck with eagerness, enjoying the tease of it all; the little kisses Bucky leans up for,  _ demands _ . Enjoying Bucky flipping them over and taking  _ his  _ turn; the laughter and clumsiness that comes from best friends making love with all the time in the world; the new positions his body has never tried before; the warm sweat of it; the pre-come and the slowness, the build-up, the closed-eyes white heat of it; the collapse; the pleasure that rolls through their bodies in waves.

Steve was right. It did come back to them.

 

 

 

They fall back to sleep, and when Steve wakes again, there’s no sunlight streaming into their room anymore; he guesses it’s four, maybe five in the afternoon, and he’s completely naked. He smiles an unmistakable I-just-had-sex smile to the ceiling, warm all over. 

Something about it had felt, admittedly, a little wrong. Not that it  _ is _ wrong, this innate attraction – he’s been around the 21st century long enough to know that. But it’s his best friend, first mate, the guy he can always count on to watch his six. It’s  _ that  _ guy sleeping beside him. That guy whose hand is still on his chest, moving up and down with Steve’s breaths. It’s  _ Bucky _ , for Christ’s sake. Bucky who’d had girls on either arm for as long as Steve’d known him.

At the same time, it’s the most  _ right _ Steve’s felt – not just since the day he woke up in the twenty-first century, but since the day he watched regretfully as Bucky’s uniform disappeared into a sea of uniforms boarding a ship headed to Georgia for Basic. It’s Bucky. Bucky, who chews at his fingernails when he’s nervous. Bucky who smiles at every golden retriever or five-year-old he passes. Bucky, who remembers when the Dodgers belonged to Brooklyn and Brooklyn belonged to him. 

Of course. It’s always been Bucky.  
  


**Epilogue**

**Śavāsana**

 

The holidays come and go, as holidays do, and leave a cold and miserable January in their wake. For the former Winter Soldier, the ice and snow and bone-settling cold are particularly unwelcome, but thankfully he’s discovered a very easy way to stay warm, and Steve has approximately zero complaints.

They manage to find their way in this wide, wide world, through the many varieties of fucked up that reside in Stark’s funhouse. Natasha begins disappearing into Dr. Banner’s room after hours on a more and more frequent basis, which Steve and Bucky enjoy teasing her about to no end. Bucky does weekly brunch ( _ “Brunch?” _ Steve’d said, incredulous) with the girls – Jennifer and Bianca from the studio – and tells them about the cute new blonde in his life, careful to keep Cap’s identity a secret. Sam and Steve run despite the cold, with Sam trying to imbue a little more self care into Steve’s routine semi-successfully. Stark never says anything about his feelings, but the missions he starts taking up have all become curiously centered around bringing down Hydra bases, which is cathartic for just about everyone. Clint spends more time at home with his family, but never fails to return for movie night. Scott Lang keeps showing up, though no one’s entirely sure who invited him, and T’Challa arrives for a long weekend to introduce his new bride. Bucky asks Steve to paint over the red Soviet star on his bionic arm, which now bears a white star in its place. Even Dr. Johnson hangs around from time to time, bringing her one-year-old, Adam, with her, and Steve and Bucky take her out for chai when she says that she’s going through a difficult divorce.

Things are chugging along so normally, so easily, that it doubles the intensity when on a Thursday morning in early March, the alarms in Avengers Tower begin to howl.

Bucky shoots under his desk immediately, hair falling in his face as his breaths come out scared and uneven; Steve and Sam had just left for their morning run not two minutes ago – surely they’re still here, in the Tower, somewhere?

F.R.I.D.A.Y. speaks over the loudspeaker: “Conference Room C. Suit up, Avengers. Conference Room C.”

Steve pounds back into the apartment, calling for Bucky, who’s trying for the third time to count down and leave the desk. He can do this. Three...two....one...gah. Okay. C’mon, son-of-a-bitch, you can  _ do  _ this. Three..two...one...

“Bucky?” Steve calls, closer now to the bedroom door where Bucky’s stuck under the desk, unable to move no matter how badly he wants to get up. It only takes another thirty seconds for Steve to barge into the room, to find Bucky whimpering beneath the desk with a look of self-loathing and frustration on his face.

“Buck,” Steve pants, out of breath. “Buck, I’ve gotta get my suit on, I– are you going to be okay? I’m sorry, Buck, I–” Steve’s at a loss for words, stuck between a rock and a hard place. His country needs him. But...so does Bucky.

Seeing the hesitation in Steve’s eyes, however, gives Bucky the boost he needs to finally hoist himself out from under the desk, heart pounding like the Fourth of July, white as a sheet but eyes focused and steady. He looks Steve squarely in the eyes.

“I’m coming.”

“No, you’re not,” Steve counters, breaking their eye contact and throwing open the closet door, pulling the Cap suit out and getting into it quickly.

“The hell I’m not,” Bucky says. He doesn’t have his own suit, exactly, but he’s got armor now, has been on a few smaller missions that he swore he was ready for. He’d performed up to par, but there hadn’t been a fucking alarm sounding that time. 

Bucky starts pulling on his armor – a heavy, fitted vest, bulletproof of course. Arm guards and plates. Steve picks up the shield, fully suited up in only ninety seconds (they practice for these things, of course) and goes toe to toe with him.

“Stay. Here,” Steve manages through gritted teeth. He knows Steve’s imagining everything that could go wrong following Captain America into the jaws of death.

He shakes his head. “I don’t belong to you, Steve. I’m my own person. And I’m coming with.”

They’re losing time; Steve can’t stay and argue, so he doesn’t – just gives Bucky a hurt look, about-faces and runs out of the room, out the door, taking the stairs up to Conference Room C with Bucky at his flank.

“Ah, so kind of you two to show up,” Stark snaps, his entire body in the Iron Man suit except his head, which looks strangely exposed and small when the rest of him is so intensely armored. Everyone living in the Tower is there already, suited up and looking impressively prepared.

“We’re going into D.C.  _ Now.  _ They found the Sergeant’s old holding compound and it’s swarming with Hydra personnel.”

 

It’s ugly. The Hulk is a terrifying mass of green destruction, fists making contact with all the horrifying equipment from Bucky’s intimate and not-so-distant nightmares – the chair, the headgear and mouthpiece, the rack, the fridge they kept him in for months at a time – bits of metal flying every which way, making high-pitched keening sounds as the Hulk’s massive hands twist and rend.

Bucky and Steve don’t leave each other’s side, their backs to each other as they take down mostly low-level Hydra agents, some of whom chew cyanide tablets before Cap’s shield can knock them out.

Natasha’s having her way with their computers, hacking the database in that way she has, occasionally flipping around to wrap her thighs around some asshole’s neck and bring him swooshing to the ground. Barton’s over her shoulder, arrows whipping out of his quiver at lightning speed, keeping guard so she can salvage whatever files remain. Rhodes sat this one out – might be sitting missions out for the rest of his life – but Tony zips around, creating chaos and distraction. They left the spider-kid at home – “He’s too young,” Steve’d said seriously during a meeting a few weeks ago – so they tried to only call on him as backup when they were in New York. Now, though, as the faceless Hydra agents continue to spill into the small space from every doorway, they could really use another hand. Wanda tries to keep them back, her powers growing stronger and more capable every day, but it’s futile. Their numbers are too great. 

Somewhere above, a grenade falls, and the explosion throws the scene into more chaos. Men’s yelps echo from every corner – Bucky’s going for the knees, Steve for the throat. After all, these are the assholes who messed with his Bucky.

Another explosion, followed by a loud, haunting scream that Bucky will surely hear in his dreams tonight, if he can even sleep, and part of the ceiling collapses, throwing the fighting into darkness and creating a wall between the east and west sides of the large room. The rubble completely buries the remains of the Soldier’s electric chair.

Natasha’s deep under rubble, bleeding from her lip and her forehead, though not too bad. Bucky sees that she’s trapped, a hunk of twisted metal also piercing straight through her thigh.

One of Iron Man’s blasts chips away at the remaining concrete of the walls, causing further collapse and more screams. Bucky’s handling it all surprisingly well, letting his mind settle into soldier mode and thinking only with his scope and the clench of the metal arm, organizing people quickly into ally and enemy and blasting away anyone who fits the latter.

He catches Widow’s fall out of the corner of his eye and breaks his dance with Steve, pointing her out. Steve sprints across the room, throwing punches on occasion but mostly moving hunched behind his shield, trying to make it to where they last saw Natasha.

Hulk roars as one of Clint’s arrows misses and goes into his shoulder – nothing serious, but it inflames Banner’s temper and the battle resurges anew, Hydra agents still piling into the room like drones, the live ones already in the room crawling on hands and knees to find lost rifles and shotguns, playing dead until they have the right shot. Most of their shots ping uselessly against the walls or Cap’s shield. One whizzes right by Bucky’s left ear, sending his brain back to World War II for a short, frightening moment.

He can do this.  _ He can stay in this. _

“ _ NAT, _ ” Steve yells, finally at the pile of rubble where she was standing only a few minutes before.

“ _ Rogers _ ,” she coughs, and as Bucky tears into a Hydra agent with his knife, Steve’s tearing pieces of metal and plastic from the pile with inhuman strength, cursing as he hurls them at nearby foes who are still coming at him from every angle. 

“Goddamnit!” Steve curses, and the worry in his voice has Bucky moving to join him.

There’s not much they can do for the leg, and Steve can’t move her unless the twisted metal is pulled out of there. To pull it out, though, could do so much damage to her thigh muscles, and she’s going to start gushing blood as soon as Steve wrenches the stake out of her thigh.

“Hold my hand,” he says, grabbing her hand in his gloved one. “Here,” he rips off a piece of her shirt and puts it in her mouth, something to bite down on. She takes it, closes her eyes, and screams.The sound of her own flesh tearing makes her lose consciousness, and the blood is even more than Bucky expected.

“Shit. Widow down,” Steve says into his comm, pressing on the wound.

“Get her out of here,” Bucky says urgently. 

“I can take her,” Sam offers. “Fly her out through that crack in the wall there.”

“Buck can take her,” Steve tries, and Bucky’s  _ had _ it with Steve trying to get him out of the way.

“I will not,  _ gah! _ ” he grunts mid-sentence, hurling a particularly nasty kick into the chest of some Hydra bitch.

_ “I can take her _ ,” Sam says again, swooping low toward where Steve is, but his leg’s caught by another agent and he gets dragged down, back into the fighting. The room is too small for his wingspan, Bucky thinks – flying in here was a mistake.

“Incoming,” Stark announces, a flash of red and gold as he sets down beside Steve, arms open. A limp mass of black-clad limbs is placed in his arms, and Iron Man zooms upward and out, getting Natasha to a safe location.

Steve and Bucky look at each other. They know they’re thinking the same thing: it could have been one of them. They turn back to the fighting.

The Hydra reinforcements seem to have run dry, and as they fall, they’re no longer replaced by more of the enemy. So much for cut off one head and two grow back, Bucky thinks viciously. We are all, eventually, bound by the same rules of space and time, gravity and mortality. Even Hydra.

The last Hydra agent falls with Bucky’s metal hand breaking three ribs, one of which punctures his lungs, and the room goes quiet for a surreal moment with nothing but his raspy, gasping dying breaths to fill the space. Hulk, in better control of his abilities since he started meditating, centers himself and shrinks back to a naked Banner. Clint tosses him his pants, sweat and blood covering his own tired face. Bucky doesn’t remember the action clearly, but suddenly he’s sitting down and breathing hard, the gravity of what just happened settling onto his shoulders.

“It’s done,” Steve says. “This hell pit won’t be the Hydra’s torture playground ever again.”

Bucky’s body aches. He thinks Shelly would call this ‘closure’ but he’s not sure what he should call it. Not sure there’s a name for what he’s seen in here today.

“We need to go find Nat,” Bruce says, and Clint nods in agreement. Sam carries one of his wings, huge when you’re right up close to it on the ground, that got pulled off mid-battle, and he’s walking with a limp.

Steve nods. “Let’s get out of here.”

They’re back in New York the very same evening. New York, of course, is unchanging – the yellow taxis like busy bumblebees pollinating the city, the Hudson River never breaking flow, stores closing as the bars open, the homeless ever-present as the streetlights flicker on. 

New York doesn’t know when you’ve just finished a wonderful book, or your Great Aunt Susan just passed away and you never really had the chance to tell her how much she meant to you. It doesn’t care that you’ve just gone to therapy for the first time and it was really hard to make yourself go but you went anyway and that in itself is a success. 

It doesn’t change if you come home from destroying your very own torture chamber with your bare hands.

In a way, it’s sort of comforting. To see that the world is still turning, no matter how many times Hydra or other various villains and terrorist organizations and crazed killers and armed hate groups try to make it stop. 

Millions of years ago, life itself almost perished in one of the largest mass extinction events in Earth’s history. More than 95% of species on Earth disappeared. But life blossomed back, became resilient New Yorkers and pigeons and the lobsters in the fish markets and brave men and women who fight for justice in Stark’s Tower.

In the same way, Bucky is resilient. They tried to imprison him, they used him, and when they couldn’t use him, they tried to extinguish him. But he’ll keep coming back.

Natasha will recover. She needed emergency surgery to remove some of the small pieces of metal that broke off inside her, but she pulled through. It doesn’t hurt that Stark’s Tower has blood on hand for every Avenger, in case of crises like these. She’ll be good to go in a month or so. 

Steve tells Bucky that her doctors have recommended therapy, and that for the first time in her life, she hasn’t refused. Bucky hopes she’ll spill the atrocities of the Red Room out, and finally begin to unknot herself, to deal with the trauma.

 

The night they get back, Bucky’s a mess. It’s the first time he’s killed since he gave himself up to the Avengers, and it’s sickening. Bad guy or not, to take a human life, to sever it with knife or cyborg fingers and play God like that.... Maybe Steve was right. Maybe he shouldn’t have gone.

He rolls a joint, this strain of marijuana good for settling his overactive mind when it tries to unravel, and as he licks the paper, Steve enters the room.

Steve doesn’t smoke with Bucky anymore – it’s his prescription after all – but he sits on the couch beside him, and rests his hand on Bucky’s thigh. “You alright, pal?” he asks, his shoulder in a sling after the battle tore at his old shoulder wound. 

“I’m alright, Steve. Just... a lot on my mind. I killed all those people today.”

“I know. It’s tough,” Steve says. “I killed ‘em too.”

“Yeah, but you’re  _ Captain America _ .” 

“I’m Steve. And you’re Bucky. We’re not our labels or our titles, Buck. We’re just a coupla kids from Brooklyn, tryin’ like anyone else to do right in this world. And we did a good thing today. I’m proud of you.”

Bucky lights the joint, the comforting smoke a welcome visitor in his aching lungs.  He offers it to Steve politely, who declines. 

“I– I’m sorry for telling you not to go, this morning,” Steve says, now brushing strands of Bucky’s hair out of his face absentmindedly. 

“Yeah, that sucked,” Bucky says, breathing out smoke.

“Won’t happen again.”

“I know.”

“We just want to keep each other safe, I guess?” Steve says, his eyes in another time, a different decade.

“‘S all I ever wanted, I think,” Bucky responds, a smile beginning to play on his lips. 

They sit like that for a few moments, until the joint is nothing but a butt and Bucky puts it out in the ash tray. 

“Ready for bed?” Bucky asks, and there’s nothing remotely coy about it. They’re tired, tired old men.

“Am I ever.” Steve sighs, standing up and then grabbing Bucky’s hands and pulling him up from the couch as well.

They crawl into bed in the darkness, each wearing only boxer briefs. Steve’s now in the habit of wearing ones with a big red star on them (courtesy of Stark, who finds their blossoming relationship “Adorable. Disturbing, but adorable.”). Steve flips onto his side, facing Bucky. They’re face to face, showered and winding down but with wear and tear from the day’s fighting. Steve lifts an index finger to trace a purpling bruise on Bucky’s cheek, kisses it with a chaste brush of his lips.

“I want to be the big spoon tonight,” Bucky says slowly. He says it again with conviction. “Yeah, lemme be the big spoon tonight, Steve.”

Steve smiles, his white teeth glowing in the moonlight and flips over onto his other side, shaking the bed. Bucky scoots himself forward to press against Steve’s back. Their calves tangle naturally as Bucky presses himself to fit the curve of Steve, his arm tucking up and around Steve’s chest so his flesh fingertips can press against where Steve’s heart is racing. 

Bucky’s chin fits perfectly in the divot between Steve’s neck and shoulder, and he nuzzles in, happy and protective, the word  _ Mine _ in his head.

“Thanks for having my six,” Steve says, and though Bucky can’t see his face, he can hear the smile in his voice. “Thanks for taking care of me when I don’t always take care of myself, punk.”

“You’re definitely the punk in this equation,” Bucky responds, half-asleep already, thanks to the exhausting work of the day and the mercy of the joint. “And your six is my favorite one to watch.” Bucky smirks into Steve’s shoulder.

It’s like Steve can hear Bucky winking. In retaliation, he pushes his butt back into Bucky, wiggling around  _ completely unfairly. _

“Sorry, just had to readjust,” Steve teases.

“ _ Asshole _ .”

“Jerk.” Bucky’s lips press against Steve’s shoulder, grateful that they’re both safe in this seemingly never-ending war. “Jerk,” he says again for good measure, though it’s muffled by Steve’s skin. He decides, then and there, that Steve must’ve been onto something. That there really must be no coincidences in this universe. That it can’t be mere chance that the two of them get this second crack at life, despite all the efforts to keep them apart. In this quiet moment against Steve’s warm skin, Bucky thanks the powers that be for bringing him back home.

 


End file.
